


Climbing the Curved Earth

by Harlanhardway (Target44)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Historical, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Hair appreciation, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Mountaineering AU, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Polish AU, Polish names, Slow Burn, Sports, are the 1980s really historical though?, excessive endnotes, glacially slow, it's really bad this time, there are literal glaciers involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-01 01:32:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10911579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Target44/pseuds/Harlanhardway
Summary: It's the 1980s, in Poland, and they're all mountaineers.  Ben just got back from an expedition up Everest when he meets a red-haired climber that he doesn't quite know what to make of.





	1. Before Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the crazy long notes but I need to make some disclaimers:
> 
> 1) I am not Polish, don’t speak Polish, and have never studied Polish history. I’ve read a few books, done some wiki research, and find it generally interesting but please forgive any blatant inaccuracies. I will try to make note of bits that I deliberately fudge, but know that it’s all going to be highly suspect in general.
> 
> 2) I have done a fair bit of mountain/rock climbing, but all of this has been in the 2000s in North America. I have done some research into historic climbing and climbing in the Tatra/Himalayan Mountains, HOWEVER, a lot of the time I will probably make shit up based on my experience because researching route descriptions/climbing techniques to that level of detail is just more work than I want to put into this. The not-being-able-to read-Polish thing is a part of that too.
> 
> 3) Though homosexuality was not criminalized in Communist Poland as it was in the Soviet Union, the Catholic Church has been VERY influential in Polish history for the past 40 years. Let’s not guild the lily, it was not, and still is not an easy place to be anything other than cis, straight and Catholic. So, while I have NOT gotten rid of all period-typical homophobia, I have no interest in dwelling on it. My justification: fuck the haters, this is a queer-positive story.
> 
> 4) I have Polish-ized Hux and Kylo's names. It was not really necessary but it’s something I enjoy doing so just: be aware. I hope it’s not too jarring for anyone, they should be fairly obvious when they are introduced.
> 
> Special thanks to my beta reader [MargaretKire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire/) ([mothdustmouth](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr) for all her help and encouragement.
> 
> Also, thank you [dobranocka](https://dobranocka.tumblr.com/) for being my Polish cultural consultant!! (All errors are my own.)

The cold, crisp mountain air whipped through Benek's hair, cooling the sweat on his forehead and the back of his neck. He shivered as he dropped his pack and dug around in it for the knit wool hat his mother had made for him the previous winter. It was soft and warm, mostly white, but patterned with traditional blue and red geometric designs. He pulled it on, tucking it over his ears and pushing his dark hair out of his face, and then started uncoiling the rope. Flaking it into two neat piles at his feet, he grinned over at his climbing partner, Jędrzej.

"So, what, do we anchor off the border sign?" He gestured towards the metal signpost planted just a few steps south of the summit, marking Poland's border with Czechoslovakia.

Jędrzej stretched, cracking his back. He looked out over the High Tatras that stretched below and on either side of them. "I wouldn't trust my life to any Soviet piece of trash."

They had started their day at two in the morning in Katowice, packed into the Jędrzej's Fiat 126p 'Maluch' and drove three hours into the High Tatra Mountains to the trailhead at the base of Mount Rysy. Andrzej had recently traded in his old Maluch for the 1977 version with the slightly larger 652cc engine and, fully loaded, they were able to fly down the highway at the positively breakneck speed of 80km per hour. They pulled into the parking lot just as the sun was coming up and, after six hours of hiking, had made it to the north-west summit, the highest point in Poland, with all of Czechoslovakia laid out at their feet and a helpful sign to inform them of the penalties of an illegal border crossing.

The border had loosened somewhat in recent years as Brezhnev continued the policies established in the Khrushchev Thaw, but in the 50s and 60s there had been an electric fence stretching from east to west across the entire southern border of Poland. Standing under six thousand volts of electricity, dozens had died trying to cross it. Benek turned his face into the wind. It was August of 1980 and the iron curtain was slowly thinning, it was becoming easier and easier to get a passport and travel visa for both within the Communist Bloc and beyond. Benek had returned from a Polish climbing expedition to Nepal only months before, where he and Andrzej Czok had been the first to summit the South Pillar of Mount Everest. Had he applied for a travel visa to Czechoslovakia, it was unlikely that he would have been rejected, but the process was time-consuming, expensive and somewhat absurdist in its bureaucracy. Benek considered the whole thing a necessary evil he prefered only to inflict upon himself when absolutely necessary.

He looked down over the vast granite wall stretching below him. The best climbing routes to be found on Mount Rysy were on its eastern face, on the Czechoslovak side. He threw the rope. If the border guards wanted to climb up to 2500 meters and chase him back into Poland, they were welcome to try.

"Ben?” Benek looked up, Jędrzej had always called him that and he had gotten used to it. “Watch the rope."

He turned back just in time to see the second pile of rope snake down off the side of the mountain, following the first.

"Fuck!" He looked over the edge of the cliff. "Fuck!" The wind caught the rope, spreading it out across the whole face, and Benek lost sight of it as it fell hundreds of meters below. "Fuck!"

Jędrzej didn't say anything, just looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Andrzej Sapkowski, or Jędrzej, as he was better known, was a living legend among the Polish climbing community. He had lead the first winter crossing of the whole main ridge of the Tatra Mountains back in the late 50s and had since taken to organizing and leading high-mountain expeditions, particularly into the Himalayans. He had led the climb that had allowed Ben and the other Andrzej, Andrzej Czok, to summit Everest in May of that year. The Brits called him the 'Ice Warrior' and he was a true powerhouse of Polish Mountaineering and Benek was climbing with him and had just chucked the rope off the side of the mountain without checking to make sure it was tied to something first.

He looked back over the edge just in case the tail had maybe caught in a crack and might be recoverable. Nope, it was definitely gone. He looked back at Jędrzej.

"Umm... I'll go get it?"

"Well we're certainly not going to leave it behind. Jesus, did your brain melt away with the snow?" Jędrzej shook his head as if in amazement and Ben relaxed a little, he was being laughed at. It was summer, and the sky was clear. Dropping the rope was stupid and inconvenient, but not disastrous.

This was meant to be a low-key conditioning weekend, hiking up Mount Rysy and Kozi Wierch and rappelling down their granite faces to practice on vertical rock. Ben could use the practice. He was built for bad weather. He could climb in the snow and the ice, bivvying in his backpack and holding out against the worst cold that any mountain could throw at him, making split-second decisions and the balancing on bottle-cap-sized icy toe holds while the wind gusted and ice showered down around him. Dancing across dry rock on a clear warm day, however, was not his forte. Andrzej Czok, his climber partner on Everest, had said that watching him struggle up the Hillary Step had been like watching a drunk try to climb a ladder, it would have been funny if it weren't so terrifying. It probably didn't help that they had been tied to two ends of the same rope at the time.

Benek lead the way back down from the summit, following the way they had come, then veering south to cross over into Czechoslovakia, climbing over the saddle between the middle and north-western summits, the one they had just climbed, and skirting around to the bottom of its eastern face. He looked up at the 500 meter granite wall they had been standing at the top of only an hour before. It was now approaching one in the afternoon and the sun had passed over to the western side of the mountain. Long shadows stretched across the rock face, distorting and concealing its shape and texture. Their rope could have snagged anywhere. It could be hanging half-way up the face, or been blown clear to lie across the loose rocks of the scree slope below.

He turned to his left as a few shards of granite broke free above him and came down, bouncing off the wall and rolling past him down the mountain. His eyes caught movement on the wall, someone was climbing. Just past him, to the north, there was someone following a series of cracks upwards, towards the summit. They hadn't made it far, and were maybe fifty meters up, barely to the top of the first pitch, but they were moving fast. Benek followed the rope line with his eyes, tracing it down to the base of the wall, looking for a belayer, but there was no one. Whoever it was, was climbing solo. He could make out red hair and long, pale legs. A set of twin ropes flashed in the sun, garish purple and green against the rocks.

"Well, would you look at that?" Jędrzej had come up behind Benek and, following his gaze upward, had spotted the climber as well. He cupped his hands around his mouth and belted out, "Honek! Hey, Honek!" His voice echoed, bouncing off the face of the granite wall and the climber stopped. He set his feet and locked his right hand into the crack, leaning back on it in a resting position as he looked down at them. He tilted his head in consideration, then flipped his twin ropes over his shoulder and between his legs, into a Dülfersitz, unhooked something on his harness, and started to lower himself smoothly to the ground.

The man was wearing short green corduroy shorts and Ben watched, fascinated, as the rope slid under and between his legs, perfectly positioned on the twenty-some-odd-centimeters of thick fabric that separated him from what would surely be the most inopportune and unfortunate ropeburn imaginable. Jędrzej bumped past him, walking towards the base of the route to meet the man as he repelled down and startling Benek out of his thoughts. Benek, realizing he had just spent perhaps more time than was strictly appropriate staring at another man's crotch, went to follow.

As soon as the climber's feet were touching the ground and he had untangled himself from his ropes, Jędrzej was already shaking his hand and pulling him into a hug, smiling so widely it looked like his weathered face might crack, "Honek, I should have known we might run into you. How are you? How is the family?"

"Oh, you know, working at the smelting plant, climbing, mom still smokes like a chimney, dad still drinks like a fish." The man smiled back at Jędrzej sardonically, "You two scared the shit out of me, stumbling around like a couple of lost bison, I thought for sure it was the border patrol coming around the corner."

Jędrzej laughed and clapped Ben on the shoulder. "That sounds about right. Ben, here, isn't just as big as a buffalo, he's about as graceful as one too. We were about to rap off the top earlier," he pointed 500 meters above them towards the summit where Benek and he had been about to set up a rappel earlier that day, "when he forgot to tie off the rope and just tossed the whole damn thing right off the cliff." Ben turned red. It had been a stupid mistake, and he wouldn't deny doing it, but it was still an embarrassing way to be introduced to someone. Jędrzej gripped him by the shoulder, shaking it consolingly, "That's okay though, Ben is a good climber. He's hard, he has a hard core. He was built for the winter, summers are just too soft for him." He clapped Ben once more on the shoulder, then released him and turned back to Honek to make introductions.

"Ben, this is Andrzej Hilewicz, one of the best climbers you'll ever meet. The only person who knows the Tatras better than him is me." Benek recognized the name. Andrzej Hilewicz had been part of a huge, twenty-man expedition to Everest in February of that year. It had been the brainchild of Jędrzej himself, which explained how they knew each other. Hilewicz and another climber, Krzysztof Wielicki, were the only two to reach the top, making them the first men to ever summit Everest in the wintertime.

Hilewicz reached out one hand for Benek to shake. He took it, it was a strong hand, calloused, with long, thin fingers and delicate bones. His grip was firm and it made Ben feel ungainly, overlarge and awkward, self conscious of this thick fingers.

Despite Jędrzej's familiar manner, Hilewicz did not look to be any older than Ben. He might have even been younger, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. He had a smooth, pale face, dusted with freckles and pink from a light sunburn that stretched across his cheeks and nose. There was just the suggestion of softness about his chin, like he had not quite grown out of all of his baby fat. He was almost as tall as Ben, but much slighter, with long red hair that hung just past his shoulders in a tangled mess, matted and wind-blown. Thick wool socks were rolled down over the tops of his hard leather climbing boots, and his impossibly pale legs stood out against the dark green of his corduroy shorts. He was wearing a long-sleeved, cotton button up, but Ben could see where the sun had burned the skin on back of his neck and across his collar bones. It was red and starting to peal. His eyes wandered back down to those long white legs and he wondered for a second how the man had managed to not burn them yet, before he realizing he was staring and snapping his eyes back up to the man's face.

"And this," Jędrzej continued as the man released Ben's hand, "is Benedykt Sobolewski, he and Czok put up a new route on Everest this past May."

"Well, Mr. Sobolewski," the man started.

"You can call me Benek."

"Benek," the man nodded, scratching at the sunburn that spread across his nose, "you can call me Andrzej and, on the subject of your missing rope, I think you might be in luck." He turned towards the rockwall behind him and lifted up the loose ends of his twin climbing ropes, dragging them out from behind a pile of scree and rockfall. Tied to the bottom was a backpack and tied to the backpack was a neatly coiled, bright yellow climbing rope. "Yours, I assume? I found it draped over half the rock face, with no one around to claim it. Getting it down was a bit of a pain so: your welcome." He unhooked the rope from his pack and tossed it at Ben.

Jędrzej laughed, clapping Ben on the shoulder some more and looking up at Andrzej's ropes where they hung down off the wall. "Getting a bit of a late start, aren't you?"

Andrzej shrugged, "There's a bivy ledge half-way up. The whole thing is twelve pitches and I want to protect all of it, so it's a bit too long of a day for me to solo in one go anyway."

There are two ways of soloing a climb: either climbing with protection, or without. Climbing without protection is fast and efficient. There is no rope and no gear to mess with, but a fall on an unprotected climb means a fall all the way to the ground. A protected solo is the exact opposite, it's incredibly slow and excruciatingly measured. A climber will fix their rope to the bottom of the pitch, then climb up, securing the rope to the wall as they go and staying attached to it with a friction knot, like a prusik or a Klemheist, that will slide along the rope as they climb, but tighten and arrest their fall if they slip. When they reach the top, they will secure the rope, then rappel down the bottom and climb the whole thing again, cleaning their gear out of the wall. It can be done and is reasonably safe, but makes for a really long day.

Andrzej looked between the two of them consideringly, his eyes lingering skeptically on Benek. "If you were looking to get some climbing in, the three of us together might be able to top out before it gets dark."

Jędrzej and Andrzej looked at each other, making faces and wiggling their eyebrows in unspoken discussion, presumably over Benek's ability to keep up and not pull anyone off the rock face or drop the fucking rope again.

Andrzej quirked his eyebrows in question one last time and then nodded and turned to Benek, it seemed the verdict had come out in his favor. "The crux pitch is right off the bivy ledge. If we can simul-climb the first half we should be able to break for a bit, then pitch out the next 50 meters and simul-climb the rest of the way to the top. You brought headlamps?" Benek nodded. "Good, we'll probably need those on the descent."

Despite Jędrzej's seniority, it was clearly Andrzej's climb and he was taking the lead on it. His climbing harness was homemade, tied and sewn together out of nylon webbing, and dangling from it were various bits of climbing hardware: hexes, nuts, pitons, wires, and quick draws. He had nylon slings slung over his shoulder and the whole rack clanked and rattled as he arranged his gear to his liking and tied himself to his twin ropes with a Klemheist knot. Benek, they had decided, would be climbing second. He tied himself directly into the two ends of Andrzej's twin ropes and then uncoiled and flaked out the third rope, tying one end to himself and handing the other to Jędrzej, who also tied in.

The idea was: Andrzej would lead up, following the fixed ropes. When he reached the top of the fixed ropes, he would detach them from the wall and tie into them directly, then continue upwards, setting new gear as he went. Ben would start up as soon as the rope that attached him to Andrzej started to pull tight and Jędrzej would follow him, also a rope's length away. Simul-climbing was slightly more dangerous than climbing up one at a time from a fixed anchor, but it was fast. They could climb continuously until Andrzej ran out of gear, at which point he would stop and build an anchor, then belay the rest of the team up to him so that Jędrzej, who would have been cleaning the gear off the wall as he climbed, could either pass all the gear back to Andrzej, or leapfrog past him, taking a turn as lead climber. Benek, in the middle, would be assuming the least responsibility and thus was stuck hauling all of the water.

Andrzej was a fast climber and Ben felt like he had just barely managed to situate his newly increased load evenly over his shoulders, when the rope began pulling tight, leaving Ben scrambling to keep up.

Crack climbing is all about finesse, flexibility and, some might say, pain tolerance. A climber shoves their hands, fingers, fists, or feet into a crack in the rock and twists, getting their joints literally stuck in the constriction so that they can use it to leverage themselves upward, then untwists, releasing the joint and sticking it back in the rock a little higher up, pulling themselves up a little further, foot by foot, hand placement by hand placement.

Benek locked his right hand into the crack, then shifted his hips around, trying to free his over-sized boot so he could move it up. His whole body was contorted, his hands and feet stacked directly one over the other in the vertical crack and he swore under his breath as his boot finally popped free. He shoved it back in the crack and stood up into it, turning to the side again to try and pull his left hand out of the wall. Being big and broad did not help with crack climbing.

He glanced up towards Andrzej. They had short-roped themselves a little so that they could still communicate, leaving thirty meters between each climber instead of sixty. Thirty meters was still a reasonably long way, but the wall above him was almost perfectly vertical and Ben could clearly make out a green corduroy-clad ass, silhouetted against the sky directly above him. The man looked like he was swimming, placing one hand over the other and one foot on top of the next in smooth, sure motions. The stress of leading and placing gear did not seem to have affected his speed.

Ben squinted up at the rope line. As a matter of fact, Andrzej seemed to have placed only two pieces of gear in the more than twenty-five feet separating them.

"Hey!" Ben called. "Andrzej!"

Andrzej paused and looked back, his red hair forming a halo around his face despite the long shadows of the afternoon sun.

"There are three of us hanging off this shit! Place! More! Fucking! Gear!" He enunciated each word to be sure that they carried.

Andrzej looked at him for a second as Beneks words echoed up to him. "10-4!" He yelled back and then continued climbing.

Andrzej did not place more fucking gear. There seemed to be an average of two, three at the very most, pieces of gear between them at any given time and they made it all the way up to the bivy ledge without having to stop.

When Benek pulled himself up onto the ledge to see Andrzej giving him a belay through a couple of carabiners hanging off a permanent anchor, an anchor which Benek hoped to all gods Andrzej had known was going to be there, he was extremely relieved. He was relieved and not even that surprised to note that Andrzej did not appear to have any single piece of gear left on his person.

Benek tied himself into the anchor and started belaying up Jędrzej, handing his pack off so Andrzej could rest and rehydrate. He pulled the slack out of the rope, feeding it into a neat pile next to him, and watched Andrzej out of the corner of his eye. The ledge was slightly sloping and barely 45 cm across at the widest part and Benek envied him his narrow frame.

Andrzej had wasted no time in getting comfortable. He was stretched out on the rocky shelf with his head resting on his backpack, a water bottle in one hand and what looked like half a spindle of oscypek cheese crushed between two pieces of bread in the other. A wet handkerchief was draped across his eyes and he sighed contentedly to himself as he shifted against the rock, trying to find a slightly more comfortable position for his hips. Eyes still covered, he brought the water bottle up to his lips to drink, then took a bite of his sandwich, chewing slowly with a soft smile on his face as if it were the finest thing he had ever tasted. He brought up one long leg and stretched it out in front of him, carefully rotating the ankle.

Ben felt the rope go slack in his hands and his attention snapped back to what he was doing. He pulled up the loose rope and resolved to concentrate on the task at hand, allowing himself only the occasional glance towards the red-haired man lounging precariously next to him.

A few short minutes later, Jędrzej's head popped up over the ledge. "Well, hello ladies. Having a nice nap are we?"

Clipping himself into the anchor, he turned to sit, leaning back hard against the rock face and sorting through the gear that he had accumulated. He handed each piece over to Andrzej as he untangled them.

"I swear to god, Honek, if I hadn't seen you bivy for three days, waiting out a snowstorm in nothing but a wool sweater and a pair of dishwashing gloves, I would think you were the biggest nancy that ever lived."

Andrzej had sat up a little and uncovered his eyes, but was still leaning heavily against his pack with his legs stretched out in front of him. He didn't even bat an eye at the insult. "Why? Did I not go fast enough for you? I was trying to save your legs, Old Man, we still have the crux and the better part of 200 meters left to the top." Andrzej's fingers danced over his gear rack, untangling slings and re-tieing quick draws. Carabiners clinked quietly against each other as each piece was sorted, inspected, cleaned and clipped back into place.

"Speed?" Jędrzej scoffed, "The true test of a mountaineer is endurance. Anyone can go fast. When the weather is good, you go fast, but when it's not, and you can't go fast, you must endure."

"Whatever you say, Oldtimer." Andrzej put away the last bit of gear, then lay back down again.

"See, this is what I mean. This is a bivy ledge, not your own personal fainting couch." Jędrzej shook his head in exaggerated dismay and accepted a chunk of hard bread with kaszanka, Polish black pudding, and a water bottle from Benek.

Andrzej readjusted the handkerchief over his eyes and took a bite of his sandwich, unperturbed. It seemed like this might be an exchange they had fairly regularly. "It's not my fault I look like an angel and you look like your mother fucked a walrus."

"At least when they throw me in a Soviet prison camp, I'll come out with my asshole intact."

"Why do you think I learned to climb so fast? If Stalin wants to suck my dick, he's welcome to come up to 8000 meters and give it a try."

Both of Benek’s eyebrows shot up. The Soviets were not popular, but most climbers prefered to keep their opinions to themselves and their noses clear of politics. Badmouthing Stalin publicly was, at best, a good way to get yourself blacklisted, and at worst, a good way to get yourself disappeared.

Seemingly sensing Ben's unease, even from under the handkerchief, Andrzej tilted his head towards Benek. "We're almost 3000 meters up the side of a cliff. Stalin can go fuck himself. If you are a Soviet sympathiser, I apologize for making you uncomfortable and would be only too happy to end your immense suffering by tossing you off the side of the fucking mountain, but if you were, Jędrzej would not have brought you here." He paused and turned his head back in the general direction of Jędrzej. "Unless you brought him up here with the intention of tossing him off the side of the fucking mountain, in which case I am very pissed off that you decided to involve me, you know how I feel about members of my rope team."

Jędrzej nodded, "You never cut the rope."

"You never cut the rope." Andrzej confirmed. He sighed and rotated his shoulders against the rock. "And I'm not suicidal so I guess you're safe either way, but I'd keep those pro-Soviet thoughts to yourself if you don't want your climbing partners pissing in your canteen when you're not looking."

Benek shifted uncomfortably, "I'm not a Soviet Sympathiser. I just like to climb. All that other shit is just... shit." He looked out over Czechoslovakia, the sun glinted off Popradske Lake far below, framed on both sides by mountains, Gerlachovský štít to the south and Havran off in the distance to the northeast. “I like that it doesn’t matter up here.”

Andrzej hummed as he finished his sandwich, not saying anything further.

A few minutes later, Jędrzej leaned down over the side of the ledge and declared that he could see border patrol at the base of the wall. All previous conversations were forgotten and soon all three of them were hanging with their heads over the side, laughing and squinting down to look at the figures below. They argued good naturedly about whether or not they had been spotted as they finished their late lunch, until Andrzej finally stretched and stood up, rechecking the anchor and looking up towards the summit at the next expanse of wall.

Above the bivy ledge, the quality of the rock changed, the deep, vertical crack they had been following splintered into a system of cracks, all of them shallow, flared and crumbling. The climbing was not necessarily more challenging, but it was almost impossible to protect. There were no constrictions or pockets to hold nuts or hexes, no protrusions to throw a sling around, and no thin cracks in which to pound a piton, or place a wire. A shallow, flaring crack won't hold gear and until the rock changed, if Andrzej fell, he would be falling all the way down until his weight caught on the anchor.

"You want me to belay you?" Jędrzej asked. Normally that task would fall to Benek, as he came next in the rope team, but knowing your belayer could sometimes make a huge difference in terms of confidence on a difficult lead. It wouldn't be an insult to Ben for Andrzej to say yes, just a comment on how he and Benek did not know each other and had not had the chance to build up a sense of trust.

Andrzej continued studying the wall. "No, Benek can do it. I hate it when people overcomplicate things by fucking around with the belay." He stared up in silence for a few more minutes, occasionally ghosting his hands through the air in front of him as he sequenced out the route. Satisfied with what he could see, he tore his gaze away to inspect Benek's belay system, then raised a pale eyebrow as Benek looked up, meeting his eyes. "On belay?"

"Belay on," Benek confirmed.

"If you can't hear me when I get to the top, I'm just gonna start hauling on the rope. When you feel it go taunt, that means climb, so be ready."

Benek watched Andrzej as he started up the wall, feeding rope through the belay system. "Aye, aye, Captain." He said, under his breath.

Andrzej was an unquestionably excellent climber. Every movement was balanced and efficient, executed with precision and exactitude. In those few minutes he had spent studying the wall, he seemed to have sequenced every move, memorized every hold. There was no flailing about, kicking at the wall or grasping blindly with sweaty palms. He would reach up and a handhold with appear, almost like magic, under his fingertips, exactly where he placed them. It was like watching a dance. One: he stepped up on his right foot. Two: he turned his hips into the wall to control his center of gravity. Three: he flagged out left to counterbalance. Four: he reached up with his left hand, maximising his wingspan. Step, turn, flag, reach. Step, turn, flag, reach. Steady and smooth and precise.

Benek watched until Andrzej was out of sight and then continued to stare up at the rockface, feeding rope slowly through the belay system. When there was almost no more slack left, he unclipped the rope, shrugged into his pack, and started up the pitch, following the rope line and trying to mimic Andrzej's movements.

After that first, mostly unprotected, section, they were able to simul-climb again and made good time to the summit, reaching it without headlamps. They climbed past the border crossing sign and back onto Polish soil, watching the sky turn orange and then red as they finished off their water and repacked their gear, preparing for the hike back to basecamp, or in Benek and Jędrzej's case, the parking lot.

Handing Andrzej back his gear, Jędrzej packed up quickly, then wandered off to relieve himself against the border crossing sign, while Benek slowly coiled the ropes, watching Andrzej clean and sort his gear rack.

Andrzej had dug a tightknit wool sweater out of his pack and pulled it on against the rapidly chilling night air, his face was streaked with dirt and dried sweat and his hair had gotten progressively more unkempt as the day went on. The back was so matted it looked shorter than the rest, hanging in a thick clump against his neck while the front had dried into long sweat-crusted strands around his face. There was a shallow scrape down the side of his right leg and it had bled into his sock. Dried blood flaked off his calf leaving pale, white patches where he had been itching at it. His nail beds were stained with dirt and, presumably, dried blood from his leg. His eyes were pale and green and his hair was red and just as the sun dipped below the horizon, the very last sliver of light seemed to catch in his hair, making it glow.

===================================================

It was full dark by the time Benek and Jędrzej made it to the parking lot and, rather than driving to the trailhead at the base of Kozi Wierch and stumbling around in the dark looking for a place to camp, they decided to join Andrzej where he had set up camp next to Czarny Staw pod Rysami, the lake at the base of Mount Rysy.

Andrzej did not own a car and had instead ridden the 35km from his home in the mountain town of Zakopane to the base of Mount Rysy on his bicycle, which now stood, hidden in the bushes and chained to a tree outside the parking lot at the trailhead. As a result, his camp was small and did not have many creature comforts to speak of, but he had a small white-gas stove and had already begun brewing tea in a steel camping pot by the time Benek and Jędrzej approached the campsite.

Andrzej looked up. He had changed into long pants, put on a puffy down jacket and pulled a blue and white knit stocking cap over his disheveled red hair, but still he looked cold, his face made exceptionally pale by the glare of the headlamps.

“I only have one glass for the tea, but, if nothing else, we can always pass the pot around. Also, I don't know what food you brought, but I have these.” He held up a glass jar full of homemade gołąbki cabbage rolls, “They’re beef. I was going to steam them with some potatoes, if you’re interested.”

Jędrzej and Benek shared a look, they had brought blood sausage, bread and coleslaw for the entire weekend. There was plenty of it, but a fresh hot meal sounded fairly amazing as an alternative. “How about we do a trade?” Benek suggested, dropping his pack and digging through it for their provisions.

In the end, Jędrzej and Benek set up their tents while Andrzej cooked potatoes and steamed the entire jar of cabbage rolls. Cookware and utensils were in short supply but after a quick rinse in the lake, everyone was fairly content to pass around the pot, eating directly out of it, Jędrzej with a fork, Andrzej with a soup spoon, and Benek with the sad little tea spoon that Andrzej had handed him with a slightly wicked smile. Andrzej had relinquished his glass to Jędrzej and given the empty gołąbki jar to Benek to drink out of, leaving himself to sip his tea directly from the steel saucepan.

The food was good, hot and hearty, and they chatted idly while passing it back and forth until there was none left. Then Andrzej got up to rinse the dishes out in the lake and fetch more water for a fresh pot of tea. While he was gone, Jędrzej winked at Benek and pulled out a bottle of vodka from his pack, gesturing with it and wiggling his eyebrows questioningly. Benek downed the last of his tea and held out his jar.

Jędrzej was just filling his own glass as Andrzej walked back from the lake. Andrzej huffed and rolled his eyes, lighting the stove and setting the water to boil, before digging into his food bag and producing a jar of dill pickles. He popped the lid and handed it over.

“If you’re going to drink, at least drink like civilized people, not like a couple of old drunks.”

Jędrzej reached out for a pickle, lifting his glass to Andrzej as he bit into it. “You’re a good man Honek. That was a good climb you led today.”

Andrzej just nodded and settled back against his backpack. He shifted a few times, trying to get comfortable, then pulled a tin of chewing tobacco out of his pocket and began to flick it in his hand, rapping his fingers against its side to pack it.

Benek took a drink, then chewed on a pickle as he watched Andrzej take a pinch of tobacco and stuff it between his gums and lower lip on the right side of his mouth.

“You dip?”

“Hmm?” Andrzej turned towards him and Ben could see him lick a fleck of chew off his lower lip and pack it down in front of his teeth with his tongue.

“Chewing tobacco? Really? Why? I was going to ask if you were married but I guess I don’t have to now. Where did you even get it?”

Andrzej shrugged, “I’m an alcoholic so I don’t drink. I’m a climber so I don’t smoke, and I’m a Pole so I can’t get coffee, what else am I supposed to do, meditate? I bought it in Katmandu last winter after we got down off Everest.” He leaned to the side, away from Benek and Jędrzej and dug a shallow hole in the ground next to him with his hand. He spit into it. “I’m down to my last couple cans, so it will be back to wheat coffee and cold discipline very soon anyway. But, to your first point, there are certain things, certain people might find appealing about a man who chews tobacco, thank you very much."

"What? Mouth cancer?"

"A talented tongue." He grinned and laughed when Benek rolled his eyes and made a disgusted face in response and Benek could see the tobacco, dark and pungent against the white of his teeth.

“Don’t mind him,” Jędrzej leaned over, refilling his glass half-full with vodka. “Honek is a special one, always has been. He says he’s an alcoholic and won’t drink. Drink, don’t drink, it’s all the same to me, but half of Poland is full of alcoholics and all of them still drink so that’s really no reason.”

“Yes, but I prefer not to be a useless sack of wife-beating shit.” Andrzej leaned over to spit in his little hole in the ground.

This appeared to be yet another long-running argument between them and Benek, not interested in listening to the two of them bitch at each other for the next ten minutes, cut in. "Did you ever call that number?”

Jędrzej and Andrzej both looked at him in confusion.

"Last winter, on Everest, I heard you brought back a note someone had left on the summit, to prove you made the winter assent, and it had a telephone number on it. Call here for a good time, or something?"

"Oh, that. 'For a good time call Pat Rucker 274-,' something something something, 'Anchorage, Alaska, USA.' No, I never did call it." He looked off to the side for a moment and Benek thought he was going to spit again, but then he looked back. "It was the other way around though. The man who left the note, Ray Genet, never made it back to Base Camp. When we brought back the note, it proved that he had summited."

"There's something kinda poetic about that," Jędrzej mused, looking off into the night as he sipped his drink. "He never made it down, but his message did."

"Or sad, the man gave his life to leave that note on the summit of Everest and it wasn't even up there a year before somebody took it back down again." Benek fished another pickle out of the jar, he was feeling contented and happy and did not appreciate the maudlin turn the conversation had taken.

Andrzej leaned over to spit, "Yeah, well I'm sure he took a dump on Everest too and I certainly didn't haul that back down with me, so I think it's safe to say that the mountain remembers him."

Benek snorted into his drink, vodka shooting up his nose and burning his sinus. His eyes watered and he tried to suppress his inappropriate laughter while wiping them on his sleeve. "Jesus Christ. That's not funny, a man died."

"Yeah, well, he was climbing a mountain, not fighting for world peace." The water had started to boil and Andrzej sat up to turn off the stove and throw in a teabag. He did not seem particularly concerned about the fate of his fellow climber.

Benek glanced towards Jędrzej. Jędrzej grimaced, "We all know the risks and we all accept those risks every time we climb." He held up his glass. "To Ray Genet, who stood on top of the world."

Benek raised his jar and Andrzej his pot of hot tea. "To Ray Genet, who stood on top of the world."

There was a moment of silence as they all drank and then Benek decided to take some initiative and change the subject. "So, I have my eye on Makalu for next summer."

"Oh yeah?" Andrzej responded, "I climbed it a couple years ago, in ’78. Which summit are you looking at Makalu La or Makalu II?”

Benek smiled and leaned forward. "Both, I want to climb the whole north-west ridge."

The conversation stayed on the Himalayan Mountains and their nextdoor neighbors, the Karakorum, for the rest of the evening, with everyone discussing their respective plans for tackling their next 8,000 meter monster. 8,000 meters was the magic number, there were only fourteen mountains in the world that were that high and they were all in the same small corner of Asia. It was also considered the limit of the human body's ability to acclimatize, any altitude above 8,000 meters was call the "death zone." At that point, oxygen levels drop below the requirements of the human brain, and the lack of atmospheric pressure allows fluid to enter the lungs and penetrate the blood-brain barrier, causing the brain to swell and the lungs to fill with fluid. Low oxygen levels in the blood also make it easier to develop frostbite. Sleeping is difficult, digesting food is near-impossible. Over 8,000 meters, human life expectancy is measured in hours.

Jędrzej and Benek sipped their vodka as they talked and Andrzej leaned over to the side every once in a while to spit.

Slowly, the conversation dwindled and, after a few hours, Benek looked mostly asleep, sprawled out over his backpack on the ground while Jędrzej and Andrzej stared up at the sky in companionable silence. Then Jędrzej stood up, nodding to Andrzej, and kicking at Benek's boots. “See you two in the morning.”

Andrzej nodded back, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Hey, hold up. I need someone to help me with my sunburn.”

Jędrzej was already pulling back the flap on his tent. “One of the few privileges of being old is that you don’t have to help anyone with anything anymore, get the kid to help you.”

Andrzej kicked lazily at Benek’s boots. "Hey, wake up." He paused to fish the tobacco out of his mouth, spitting the last of it into the hole he had dug in the ground by his hip and burying it with his foot. “I need you for a second.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m awake.” Benek stretched, then reached up to adjust his headlamp, turning it on and squinting against the glare. He yawned loudly and looked over at Andrzej, who was hunched over his backpack looking for something. “What do you need?”

"Here." Andrzej sat up with a half-empty bottle of aloe vera lotion in his hand. He tossed it at Benek. It bounced off his chest and onto the ground.

“I just need you to rub some of that onto my back.”

Benek stared at him blankly for a second, then looked down at the bottle on the ground, blinking tiredly. "Oh, yeah, sunburn, no problem." He bent to pick up the bottle.

Andrzej waited until Benek had some lotion poured into his hand before turning around and flipping up his shirt and jacket, showing Ben his back. The burn looked to have been a few days old, it was bright red and peeling and Ben could see where it had blistered in places, leaving big crusty scabs.

He swayed on his feet, squinting against the glare of his headlamp, before slapping the lotion onto the center of Andrzej’s back and smearing it around with his hand. It felt like petting a snake that was in the middle of molting, except warm. The skin was rough, but the muscle underneath was strong and fluid.

Benek yawned, cracking his jaw. He felt sluggish, tired and a little drunk. “I can’t tell if you are the most attractive man I have ever met, or the most disgusting.”

Andrzej hitched his shirt up higher on his shoulders. “I like to think of myself as wonderfully multifaceted.”

Benek’s fingers caught on a patch of dead skin and it tore off in a big sheet that ran across Andrzej's whole back. “Disgusting.”

He grimaced as he squeezed out more aloe out onto his hand. The new skin was soft, pink, and smooth and as he ran his hand across it, he could see it was bisected by a series of vicious white scars, made more visible now that the dead skin had been peeled away. “Jesus, did someone kick you in the back with their crampons on?”

Andrzej glanced over his shoulder, as if to look for himself. “Oh, no, that’s not from climbing.” He gave Benek a crooked smile. “I fell through a sliding glass door, it's kinda why I don't drink.”

“Oh, okay.” Benek blinked tiredly, rubbing the last of the lotion in and stepping back to allow Andrzej to pull his shirt back down. He was so slender under that big puffy jacket.

Benek shook his head and yawned again. “I’m gonna…” He gestured vaguely towards the lake before wandering off to wash his mouth out and brush his teeth.

When he got back to camp, the stove and cooking supplies had been put away and Andrzej was standing by a tree with his toothbrush in hand, brushing his teeth with water from a jug. Benek waved tiredly and crawled into his tent. He fell asleep almost immediately and dreamed of the sun, and how it had looked, rising over Mount Everest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Before Dawn" is a poem by Zygmunt Krasiński (1843). It’s a nationalist poem that saw the division of Poland (at the time split between Russia, Austria, and Prussia) as a punishment of some sort and predicted Poland's re-emergence as a world power.
> 
> Most of the climbing done in this fic will be based in some way on the real accomplishments of Polish climbers who were active in the 70s and 80s in the Himalayan and High Tatra Mountains. They specialized in winter climbing and were given the name “Ice Warriors” by British climbers of the same period. I am not attempting to comment on the personalities or personal lives of these actual, real-life people, but want to give them credit for their accomplishments. The climbing was real, all the other shit is my own invention. If anyone's interested, there is an excellent book about this period in Polish mountaineering called _Freedom Climbers_ by Bernadette McDonald, it's definitely worth a read.
> 
> Benek's (Kylo's) career is based on that of Jerzy Kukuczka. I won’t go into everything he did, needless to say, he was a total boss and I could go on and on forever. He holds records in mountaineering that stand to this day, including setting a new route on K2 in 1986 with Tadeusz Piotrowski that is called the “Polish Line." It has never been repeated and most modern climbers won’t even think about attempting it, it is so dangerous.
> 
> Andrzej Sapkowski is a Polish fantasy writer most famous for the _Witcher_ saga, this is not even remotely relevant to the story. I am using his name for a character based on the climbing career of Andrzej Zawada, who was a prominent Polish climber in the 1970s and 80s. He led and organized many of the Polish high-mountains expeditions and is considered a pioneer of winter Himalaism.
> 
> Andrzej’s (Hux's) career is somewhat based on that of Leszek Cichy. He and Krzysztof Wielicki made the first winter ascent of Mount Everest in 1980 (the story about the note they brought back down with them is true) and he became the first Polish Climber to complete the Seven Summits (highest mountain on every continent).
> 
> I studied maps and route descriptions of Mount Rysy but have never been there and... most of the resources I found were in Polish so I made a certain amount of shit up about the route but most of the climbing should, logistically, follow.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr [harlanhardway](https://harlanhardway.tumblr.com/)


	2. The Coming Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A second encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: mention of mass shootings and war crimes (non-graphic and completely off-screen)
> 
> Just as a quick refresher:  
> Kylo Ren = Benek/ Ben  
> Armitage Hux = Andrzej/ Honek
> 
> So… I really wanted to give Finn a part in this story but there are pretty much no black mountaineers and definitely no black people in 1980s Poland, so I made him this rad local climber in Pakistan, which is dramatically changing his ethnicity. I am NOT trying to conflate all people of color as being, “basically the same thing,” I just thought that it was unfair that I feel fine about casting Hux and Ren in every even vaguely white ethnicity possible (I made Hux Chechen in my last fic for god’s sake) but then Finn didn’t get even a cameo because there aren’t any racially specific roles for him to play, so I just kinda said: fuck it. This is my warning for the potentially non-PC content of Finn being Pakistani. (and yes, I realize I could have just made him a rando black climber with no basis in history but… I didn’t).
> 
> Thank you, thank you, my lovely and long-suffering beta reader [MargaretKire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire/) ([mothdustmouth](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/) on tumblr)!

The afternoon sun beat down, hot against the side of his face, and the snow underfoot was wet and heavy, like fresh cement.  Benek breathed in deeply through his nose, filling his lungs completely with oxygen-rich air, then forcing it out through his mouth in a long exhale.  He felt the strain of his lungs, the slow beating of his heart, the itch of sweat and hot wool against his scalp and the burn of lactic acid building up in his legs.  Even his eyes were sore from the relentless glare of the sun that filtered in through his glacier goggles.  He was tired.  
  
He and and his climbing partner, Dopheld Mitaka, had started at two in the morning, making their summit push when the snow was hard and the risk of avalanche was low.  Using headlamps for most of the way, they had made it to the top of Broad Peak just as the sun was coming up.  At 8,000 meters, the atmosphere is thinner.  It reflects less light, turning the sky a deep midnight blue and the sun red.  As it rose, the sun had looked like a forest fire cresting over the Karakoram Mountains and engulfing the Gasherbrum Range in red hot flames.  For a second, breathing in the thin air and looking out over the clouds, Ben had been sure they were about to be consumed by the heat of it.  They would be scoured from the face of the mountain by a purifying sun and the wind would blow to cover their footprints, leaving no sign of their passing.  
  
Benek prefered small climbing teams to the big, national expeditions.  Though a lot could be said about the national expeditions.  In 1975, the middle summit of Broad Peak had been climbed for the first time by a Polish National Expedition.  This style of climbing was like leading a frontal assault on a fortified castle.  A large team would be assembled along with a massive amount of gear and equipment.  Each day they would climb and each day they would get a little higher, hauling all of their shit up with them, making camp one, camp two, camp three, and up and up, until finally a summit attempt could be made.  Each camp represented a cocoon of relative safety and resupply, a point to retreat to if anything went wrong.  But expeditions were expensive.  Complicated logistics made it hard to change plans quickly and the pressure to succeed was incredibly high.  In 1975, despite all of their careful precautions, five Polish climbers made it to the top of the middle summit, but only three returned to basecamp.  
  
Benek reached the end of the ridge line and approached the rocky outcropping that marked the location of “Camp III,” a relatively flat, wind-sheltered shoulder that had been so named for it's use by the 1975 Polish expedition.  Glancing behind him, he could just see Dolph further up the ridgeline in the distance.  The two of them had decided to climb Broad Peak in three days, making it all the way up to Camp III on the first day, pushing for the summit on day two, and returning to basecamp on day three.  It was still relatively early in the afternoon on day two and there was plenty of daylight left, but as Benek looked down at the almost 2,000 vertical meters left to climb, he knew the smarter decision would be to stay by their original plan and stop.  
  
The hard packed snow that had made for good, solid footing early that morning had softened in the afternoon sun, increasing the risk of avalanche and turning what should have been an easy hike into a miserable slog.  It was called post-holeing, so named because with every step, a climber would sink deep into the soft snow, leaving a line of footprints that looked like post holes trailing behind them.  It was exhausting and just being tired was dangerous on the mountain.  Most accidents and fatalities happened on the decent, not because downclimbing was harder, but because tired climbers are sloppy, they lose their footing and make stupid mistakes.  It would be better, safer even, to bivy for a second night and climb the rest of the way down in the morning.  
  
Benek dropped his pack and went to set up camp, digging out the overnight gear they had stashed against the rocks earlier that morning.  It was still hours until sunset, so their first priority was for both of them to rehydrate.  He pulled out their stove and shook the gas canister, it was more than half full, they had probably not drunk as much as they should have the night before.  Attaching it to the stove, he lit and adjusted the flame, then started melting snow in a steel pot.  
  
After a few minutes, Dolph stumbled up and dropped down heavily next to him.  They didn't speak, not even with their eyes.  Dopheld had grown a bushy black beard over most of his face to protect it against windburn and the glare of the sun, but Ben, being less talented in the beard-growing department, had been forced to tie a cotton handkerchief around his face.  He had tucked it up into his dark glacier glasses, leaving, on his entire body, only the small strip of skin between the top of his glasses and the brim of his wool hat exposed.  It was their first major climb together, but after months of planning, two weeks of acclimatization hikes and a third week of waiting at base camp for good weather, they had grown to know each other's habits.  Dolph wordlessly took over making water and monitoring the stove while Benek went to set up the tent and go through the food they had left for the downclimb.  
  
This was the type of climbing that Ben prefered: alpine style with a two-man rope team.  In contrast to the expedition strategy of conquering a mountain by slow attrition, alpine style was fast, adaptable, and low-cost.  A two-man rope team could wait at base camp for weeks for the perfect weather window, then climb quickly, making it to the top in a few short days without setting up fixed camps or gear caches.  It was a very committed style of climbing, some people even called it a suicide pact.  If something went horribly wrong, there would be no avenue of retreat, no intermediate camps to find shelter and resupply in.  If someone was injured, the likelihood of their climbing partner performing a successful rescue, alone, half-way up a mountain in the middle of the wilderness, was unlikely, to say the least.  But the gear requirement was lower, it was cheaper and easier to organize, and the climbing felt freeing, more pure for it's lack of structure.  It was less like declaring war on the mountains and more like an infiltration, slipping in to steal the summit like a thief, and then climbing quickly and quietly back down again before anyone noticed.  
  
After setting up the tent and reorganizing their gear, Ben returned to crouch next to Dopheld by the stove. He had brought over with him the short section of insulated foam they would later be using as a camping pad and they squeezed in next to each other to sit on it, chewing slowly at the last of the dried meat from their provisions.  They watched the shadows change as the sun drifted slowly across the sky, drinking and melting snow and drinking again.  
  
It was approaching five o'clock when a porter suddenly popped up over the crest of the ridge below them.  He was followed closely by two others, all of them hauling heavy packs and squinting into the late afternoon sun.  Dopheld and Ben watched mutely as the porters ignored them and began setting up camp in the shelter of the rocky outcropping a few feet away, chatting amongst themselves.  
  
Nudging Dolph in the side, Ben tried to shoot him an amused look but it was lost under the handkerchief and dark glasses.  Dolph just shrugged and sipped his water, and both of them turned back to continue watching the proceedings.  
  
A few minutes later two more men came into view.  The newcomers were much better dressed, in snowshoes and modern climbing wear, clearly not porters.  They dropped their light day-packs and began directing camp activity, ordering tents repositioned and pulling out empty water bottles to be refilled, before finally turning to acknowledge Ben and Dolph.  
  
The shorter of the two had dark curly hair peaking out from under his NorthFace fleece hat and his teeth flashed a brilliant white against his deeply tanned face as he approached.  "I thought for sure Finn and I would be the only ones on the mountain this week, we were told there were no other permits being issued for Broad Peak."  
  
Benek looked up from where he had been watching the snow melt in the pot over their stove.  "You are.  Our permit is for K2."  
  
Dolph piped in with a big goofy grin on his face.  "It said we could acclimate on lower peaks in the area."  
  
The man looked at them and at their camp, at their climbing rope and summit packs, clearly visible, laid out next to their tent, then glanced over at the line of their boot tracks leading further up the mountain.  "You make it very close to the summit?"  He asked.  
  
Ben pulled the handkerchief down from his face and scratched at his nose.  He removed the pan from the stove and took a drink before passing it to Dolph, then glanced back up at the climber.  "We were in the area."  
  
The man smiled mischievously and Ben could see him lift one eyebrow over the rim of his dark sunglasses.  "Well, I hope you don't mind us sharing your camp for the night.  We're hoping to make our way to somewhere in the area of the summit the day after tomorrow."  
  
Benek nodded once, and gestured vaguely in front of him in invitation while Dopheld bobbed his head enthusiastically saying, "Are you Poe Dameron?  I heard you're trying to climb all fourteen of the big ones, and without oxygen, is that true?"  
  
The man laughed and winked.  "Yeah, I'm Poe.  As to the other thing, I guess you'll have to wait and see."  
  
Poe and Finn went to grab their dinner, a kind of re-hydrated stew, from where the porters had been cooking it, and came back over, settling onto their own insulated pads to talk and trade stories as the sun slowly inched across the sky behind them.  
  
Poe was well known, not just in the climbing community, but internationally.  He had been the first man to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen.  Up until that point, when he had proved it possible through demonstration, no one had been sure if it was even something the human body was physiologically capable of.  Now he was on his way to making history again by being the first man to climb all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks.  
  
Benek sat and listened to the other three talk.  Poe expounded upon the purity of the alpine style of climbing, and lauded true Himalayan mountaineering as an exploration of the self.  According to him, expeditions conquered mountains with advanced technology and equipment but, when one climbed in an alpine style, one pitted one's self against the mountain and plumbed the depths of one's own capabilities.  
  
Benek eyed the man's Gore-Tex jacket and italian leather climbing boots, his winter weather tent and lightweight camping stove.  Flexing his toes, Benek felt the scratch of the wool socks his mother had darned for him just before he flew out of Poland, his last pair of silk liner socks were so full of holes at that point it was almost not worth wearing them.  He shifted on the flattened bit of insulation he and Dopheld would share that night to protect their chests from the cold of the snow.  Poe was a good climber.  He was a very good climber.  He had been the first to summit Everest without oxygen.  Benek had never done that.  In preparation for that climb, Poe had hired a helicopter to fly over the summit of Everest.  While the helicopter hovered above 8,000 meters, Poe had removed his oxygen mask and tested his body's ability to handle the altitude.  
  
He was well-outfitted and well-financed.  He had international recognition and support.  Ben listened to the man's fluent English, slightly accented, but clearly polished and practiced, as he explained how he would become the first man to climb three 8,000 meter peaks within one year when he summited Broad Peak the day after next.  The plan had almost not been realized when he had developed frostbite on Kangchenjunga earlier in the season and been forced to fly back to Europe to recover.  Thankfully, he had been able to heal and refortify quickly and had returned to climb Gasherbrum II and now Broad Peak.  
  
Ben looked across the camp to the three porters, now busy with their own dinner.  
  
"Well, after martial law was declared last year, it's been that much harder to get a travel visa."  
  
Benek keyed back into the conversation.  Dopheld was explaining the reason for the more modest Polish presence in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountains over the past year.  
  
"Benek was lucky."  Dolph commented, almost as an aside, "He works at the Wujek Coal Mine in Katowice, but he's not one for politics so he wasn't with the strikers when the shootings happened."  
  
Finn's eyes went round and he turned towards Benek, looking shocked.  "I get the London Times and they reported on the strike-break.  They said the army fired right into the crowd."  
  
Finn was something of a rarity within the climbing community; he was a local.  A Pakistani man, born, raised and educated, he had climbed most of the major peaks within its borders.  It seemed ironic that this man, whose own country was ruled by a military dictatorship and actively fighting off both the encroachment of the USSR in north and India in south, would be the one to have sympathy for the plight of some white, European miners.  
  
Benek shrugged.  "The mine went on strike.  I'm not part of the Solidarity Movement, but there was no work, so I went climbing.  I wasn't there when they broke it up."  
  
"Do you still work there?  How can you still work there, fourteen men were killed?"  
  
Ben lifted the pot off the stove, the ice was only partially melted, but the flame was out, they had run out of fuel.  He poured it into a water bottle for the next morning.  "It was more like nine and, well, it's communism.  They can arrest you but they can't really fire you, and, like I said, I'm not part of the Solidarity Movement.  I work so I can climb.  If I could make money some other way, I probably wouldn't work there but it's not so bad, really, as jobs go."  
  
Dolph groaned in sympathy.  "That's the real reason to do the big expeditions.  Sometimes they get sponsored by the state.  I got this when we went to Everest."  He gestured at his red down jacket, it had seen a few years hard use, but was still puffy and warm looking, then looked enviously over at Poe's synthetic fleece soft-shell and fashionable aviator sunglasses.  "It's not as nice as yours though."  
  
Poe's smile grew a little strained and he seemed unsure about how to respond, but before the moment could get uncomfortable, Benek changed the subject.  "I'm going to turn in.  We had an early start this morning and will probably do the same tomorrow."  He stood up and stretched, cracking his back loudly as he leaned back.  "Next time I shit, I want it to be on dry dirt."  
  
"Life is all about the simple pleasures."  Poe laughed as he and Finn stood to shake hands.  They all wished each other a successful climb the next day and a safe journey home.  
  
Just as Poe and Finn were turning away, Benek stuck his head back out the tent flap he had disappeared behind only moments before.  "Hey, Dameron!"  He called.  "Could you maybe not mention this?  That you saw us."  
  
Poe looked back, his white teeth flashing in the sun.  He practically oozed charisma and Ben hated him for it.  "What?  That you two were acclimatizing in the lower peaks around K2?  I don't really see that ever coming up in conversation."  
  
Having taken off his glacier glasses in the tent, Benek looked up into the dark lenses of Poe's aviator sunglasses with his brown eyes bared.  "Thanks."  
  
==============================================================  
  
The next summer, Benek was back in Pakistan.  
  
Coming down off the south-west face of Gasherbrum I and into basecamp, he felt light, almost giddy with accomplishment.  His feet ached and his hands were swollen from dehydration and exposure.  The scraggly beard he had been trying to grow to protect his face itched and he could feel where the sun had burned him through the patches in it.  His temples throbbed from too long spent at high altitude with not enough acclimatization and the straps of his backpack were digging uncomfortably into his shoulders, but he was almost laughing as he walked, no, practically strolled, back into camp.  
  
He glanced behind him to see Dopheld, not fifty meters back, trailing at a steady pace.  He smiled and dropped his pack.  Dopheld was a good climbing partner.  He wasn't always the most adventurous, but he had a good attitude, didn't waste a lot of time arguing or posturing, and he knew how to keep up.  Since their successful climb of Broad Peak the summer before, they had come back to Pakistan to climb Gasherbrum II and I, two 8,000 meter peaks, one right after another in the same trip, both alpine style, both by brand new routes, and both successful.  It felt amazing.  It felt like victory.  
  
He set about unpacking his wet gear, laying it out to dry, and pulling off his boots and stepping into soft camp shoes, all while continuously downing water in an attempt to rehydrate.  
  
As Dopheld approached, Benek looked up, smiling ear to ear with self-satisfaction.  "We should come back next year, get a real permit for Broad Peak and do it properly.  Maybe try for K2 while we're at it."  
  
Dolph dropped his pack and collapsed on the ground next to it dramatically.  "At least let me get my boots off first."  He looked at the sky for a second, then sat up to pull at the laces on his boots.  "Broad Peak: fine, let's talk.  K2: not fine, go talk to someone else.  The survival rate on that mountain is not in my comfort zone."  
  
Benek laughed and sat down next to Dolph, nudging him with his shoulder and practically knocking Dopheld over as he tried to strip out of his boots.  Dolph caught himself and stuck his tongue out in retaliation.  He had a small, more traditional climber's build unlike Benek, who could practically fill the two-man tent they bivied in all by himself.  Dopheld complained only to the point where he forced Ben to carry all the tent poles and occasionally elbowed Ben viciously in the side in the middle of the night as he defended his half of the camping pad.  
  
"Well Broad Peak then, I want to traverse the ridge, hit all four summits in one pass.  That's never been done before, but we could do it.  With good weather, we could do it."  Ben positively gushed with enthusiasm.  
  
Dolph pulled off his socks and stretched his toes out into the sunlight, sighing with relief as he wiggled them.  He seemed mostly unmoved.  "Not everything has to be by a new route, you know.  Just because someone else has done it before doesn't make it not worth doing again."  
  
Ben stretched out his shoulders and made a face, then hopped to his feet and jumped over Dolph's reclining form to dig around in the tent for more water and food.  "This isn't just about doing something that's never been done before.  This is about doing it better than anyone has ever done it before."  He turned to toss a water bottle in Dolph's direction.  "This is about style."  
  
Dopheld caught the water bottle and opened it, taking a long drink.  "That sounds like something that Poe Dameron guy would say.  'I climb, not to explore the mountains, but to explore myself.'  I heard they're making a movie about him and everything."  
  
"I am nothing like that asshole."  Ben threw a hunk of stale bread at Dopheld's head, a little harder and more direct than he had tossed the water bottle.  Catching it deftly, Dolph tipped it towards Benek in a cheeky salute while Ben scowled at him.  "What a self-satisfied prick, making shit harder and more dangerous to 'test his limits,' preaching some new-age bullshit philosophy of self-discovery.  He has no problems so he has to go around making some up so he doesn't die of boredom."  
  
Dolph shrugged, "So he's an adrenaline junkie and an amature philosopher, what's it to you?"  
  
"Nothing."  Benek grumbled as he sat back down, biting angrily into a dry piece of flatbread.  "I'm just saying that I'm not like him."  
  
They both leaned back into the warm sun, Dopheld relaxing and Ben stewing silently.  
  
"I bet I could beat him though."  
  
"What?"  Dopheld asked lazily, he had closed his eyes and looked almost asleep.  
  
"To the top of all the 8,000ers.  I bet I could beat him.  If I had the money to do it, I bet I could beat him."  
  
Dopheld hummed.  "Well, if you ever feel like picking up a little extra cash, you're always welcome to come help paint smokestacks."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Yeah, a friend of mine, he's got a bit of a racket going.  He figured out that all the smokestacks need to be repainted every few years.  You know, in time for the May Day parades and all that, but painting them is expensive and takes a lot of time.  All the painting companies that do it have to build a full scaffolding all the way around the thing, and it takes weeks and weeks.  But, if you get some climbers together and set a couple anchors at the top, you can paint the whole thing on rappel.  It's way faster and cheaper.  The work isn't steady, but you get paid in cash and it's not a bad way to spend your time."  
  
"This is in Silesia?"  Ben wasn't about to travel halfway across Poland for a few days work.  
  
"That's where most of the heavy industry is isn't it?"  
  
"You'll ask your friend?"  
  
"Don't have to.  We were talking and he said he knows you, that you're a good climber, and you're welcome to come anytime you want."  
  
"Oh yeah?  Well I'm in, the less I have to work in that fucking mine the better."  
  
"Alright, I'll let Honek know."  
  
===================================================  
  
Ben walked across the parking lot of the Katowice Steelworks.  He still didn't have a car, but had taken a bus across town with his climbing harness, sixty meter rope, and a packed lunch.  He had gotten a call from Dopheld not too long after their return to Poland, telling him that there was a job coming up in his home city and there would be a spot on the work crew for him if he could bring a harness and a rope.  
  
After stepping off the bus in front of the main entrance to the steelworks, the climbers had not been hard to find.  They were gathered in a small semi-circle around a beat-up old Fiat hatchback that looked twenty years old if it was a day.  Benek hoped whoever's car it was hadn't had to drive far because the thing looked like it was one fender bender away from catastrophic failure.  If one of the wheels had fallen off right there in the parking lot as he walked towards it, he wouldn't have been surprised.  
  
Getting closer, he began to make out faces.  Dolph he picked out right away, and standing next to him was a petite, dark-haired woman he recognized as Renata Kamińska.  He had never climbed with her, but had heard that, for a woman, she was pretty good.  She had made it up Everest in '78 and had it in her head to be the first woman up K2.  Beside her was another woman, Phasma.  He had forgotten her full name, but he and Dopheld had run into her while acclimating for Broad Peak and they had gotten along fairly well.  Jędrzej, the old goat, was standing closest to the car, dolling out paint cans from where Andrzej was passing them to him from the backseat of the hatch-back.  It must have been Andrzej.  It had been almost three years since Benek had last seen him and the man was turned away, crouched in the back of the car with only his boots and dark grey slacks visible, but Benek could have sworn that he recognized those legs.  
  
Waving a silent greeting, Benek joined the circle just as they finished unloading the car and Andrzej crawled out, ass first, then straightened up and turned to face them.  Benek almost took a step back in surprise.  
  
The last time they had seen each other, Andrzej had been laughing, his head thrown back and his eyes squinted, half shut, his hair ratted around his face and blowing in the wind, and his nose peeling from a sunburn.  He had been laughing at his own stupid joke and waving them off as they drove away, telling them he'd see them in the Himalayas and give them a taste of real Polish endurance.  
  
Two months later, General Jaruzelski had declared martial law over all of Poland.  The military had occupied every major city, a curfew had been instated, national borders had been sealed, airports closed, and telephone lines disconnected.  Mountaineering, however, was a sport much beloved by the Soviet Union, so it was still somewhat possible to get a visa for a climbing expedition.  Any summit claimed for Poland was, after all, a summit claimed for all of the Soviet Bloc.  It hadn’t made life any easier though, and if Andrzej had been to the Himalayas since then, Ben had not heard about it.  
  
Seeing him again for the first time in years, Benek wondered if maybe what had happened was that he had given up climbing altogether.  All the wildness he remembered as being so integral to Andrzej’s character, was gone.  Andrzej had cut his hair and taken to gelling it severely to one side.  It lay so flat and straight against his head that Benek could almost see the lines of the comb that had been used to tame it.  The skin of his face was smooth and unblemished, with just the lightest dusting of freckles high on his cheekbones.  His fingernails, as he reached out to shake Benek's hand in greeting, were clean, the cuticles perfectly manicured.  His pants were neatly pressed with a sharp, straight crease running down each leg and his shirt was starched, the cuffs buttoned primly at his wrists.  
  
"Good to see you could make it, Benek, that gives us even rope teams.  I hope you don't mind being paired with me."  
  
Benek missed a beat before answering, he was feeling wrong-footed and had assumed that he would be working with Dolph.  "Yeah, that's no problem."  
  
"Thanks,"  Andrzej's cool smile turned wry, "the old man is trying to recruit Dolph for his next expedition."  
  
Ben glanced over at Jędrzej, "and not me?  I'm hurt."  
  
"Don't try to feed me any of that bullshit," Jędrzej smiled, shaking Benek's hand and pulling him into a quick half-hug.  "You may be a great climber, but you are the worst team-player I have ever met.  I have decided that you best contribute to my rope teams by not being on them."  
  
Benek made a face as if in protest, but before he could retort, Andrzej was shooing them all away from the car and towards the industrial farm that was the Steelworks.  "We know, Old Man, the constraints of organization and logistics are not for the faint of heart.  You can defend the importance of community involvement and national collaboration on your own time."  
  
Andrzej was definitely not among those faint-hearted souls intimidated by the thought of logistics and organization.  By the time Benek got involved, everything had already been coordinated with the Steelworks’ administrative arm and Andrzej, having stopped by the day previous to further confirm the details, was able to lead the group of them almost immediately through to the massive smokestacks that dominated the skyline.  Their first day's worth of work was even pre-staged.  
  
They would be working on the north stack first.  While they painted, the Steelworks would be operating at half capacity.  The blast furnace that fed the north smokestack would be turned off for the first four days, and then, on the fifth day, it would go back on and the furnace feeding the south stack would be shut down.  Most of the paint, except for the last few cans they had brought with them that morning, was already on-site and ready to go.  
  
Andrzej went over this quickly as they walked and the other climbers nodded along readily, they had done this before and were familiar with Andrzej's somewhat abrupt and dictatorial style of leadership.  Then, before Benek quite had his feet back under him, they were climbing up the maintenance ladder on the inside of a massive concrete cylinder and popping out high above the Katowice skyline, tossing ropes off the side and dropping down into a rappel with buckets of paint and brushes hanging next to them.  
  
For most of the day Andrzej was just out of sight, hidden by the curved surface of the smokestack.  Working in pairs wasn't really necessary, everyone was more than experienced enough to manage their own reppel, but it was a sound safety procedure and made certain things easier and more efficient.  They would shout back and forth to coordinate trips to the top for more paint, or exchange a few words when their paint swaths met up on one side, but for the most part they painted in silence.  
  
"Benek!"  Andrzej called out just after one in the afternoon.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"I'm breaking for lunch.  Want to eat at the top?"  
  
"I'll meet you up there as soon as I finish this bucket, give me five minutes."  
  
"In fifteen I’ll come looking."  
  
Benek scraped the last dribbles of paint from his bucket and painted them smoothly onto the surface of the smokestack, then replaced the lid and let the empty bucket drop to the ground below.  Grabbing his prusik loops, two loops of cord tied with a friction knot called a prusik to the climbing rope he was hanging from, he stood up into them and started inching his way back towards the top of the smokestack.  
  
The sun shone high in the sky, warming his back, and as he pulled himself up over the lip, he was instantly reminded of the bivy ledge on Mount Rysy.  Andrzej wasn't fully reclined this time, but he was leaning back, braced on his arms, his face turned up to the sun and his legs dangling over the edge of the smokestack.  It was a beautiful blue-sky day and the wind was light, even this high up, but it had been enough to ruffle Andrzej's perfectly gelled hair into disorder.  Either that, or he had been running his hands through it as he worked, and judging by the flecks of paint smeared into it in streaks, both possibilities seemed likely.  His shirtsleeves had been rolled up past his elbows and the top two buttons of his collar were undone.  One shirttail had pulled free from the waist of his pants and every so often the breeze would flip it up, revealing a flash of pale hip.  His trousers were scuffed and there was paint under his fingernails, sweat stains under his armpits and, judging by the front of his shirt, it looked like he had already spilled some of his lunch.  
  
Benek pulled out a bottle of water and sat next to Andrzej in the sun.  Leaning over a little to see what he was eating, Benek caught the smell of sunscreen and sweat, and it made him smile.  When Andrzej turned to face him with a quirked eyebrow, he could see a spot of white paint at his temple that had been smeared across his forehead where he must have been itching at it as he worked.  Benek could feel his smile widen until his cheeks ached.  
  
"Keep smiling all you want, I'm not sharing any of my lunch with you."  
  
Ben brandished his own paper sack.  "No need, I brought my own."  
  
"Blood sausage and stale bread?  There are these lovely things called vegetables, you know, I highly recommend them."  
  
"Hey, not everyone packs a three-course meal with them every time they go climbing.  What is that, Chłodnik?"  Andrzej was holding his bowl protectively away from Ben, but the stain down the front of his shirt was bright purple and looked to be from some kind of beet soup.  "Who do you con into making you this stuff, anyway?"  
  
Andrzej sniffed indignantly.  "No one, I am perfectly self-sufficient, thank you, and it's a bowl of soup on top of a smokestack in the middle of the city, not fresh caviar on Everest.  If you can't be bothered to prepare a proper meal for yourself then that's your business, but don't blame me if I occasionally like to taste my food as it goes down."  
  
He looked pointedly over at Benek, who had already devoured most of his meal and was in the process of washing it down with a mouthful of water.  Ben grinned back, unashamed.  "How about this: if you ever cook for me, I promise to savor it."  
  
Andrzej scoffed, then shook his head and brought his bowl back in front of him to continue eating.  "As if I could ever afford to keep you in food.  You probably use more ration cards than are allocated to half my neighborhood."  
  
Ben laughed in agreement.  "Yeah, thank God for the black market."  
  
They chatted pleasantly for a while and Ben, having finished his food quickly, was able to watch Andrzej somewhat surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye.  He couldn't seem to stop smiling.  
  
"Whatever happened to climbing Nanga Parbat?  I thought that was going to be your next big summit."  
  
Andrzej finished his last bite of soup, then licked his spoon and placed it to one side.  He shrugged.  "After martial law was declared, I wasn't able to get a visa anymore."  
  
Both of Benek's eyebrows went up skeptically, "But you were going to go with the National Expedition."  
  
Andrzej nodded and scratched at his eyebrow then looked over ruefully at Benek.  "My family was part of the Polish Underground State.  Not me, obviously, but..."  He shrugged again.  
  
The Polish Underground State was the self-proclaimed continuation of the Republic of Poland.  It had operated in secret during WWII in opposition to the German occupation and then attempted to continue its activities following the armistice, in resistance to the communist takeover that had immediately followed.  By the 1960s, however, the Polish Underground State had been, for all practical purposes, eradicated.  Very few resistance activists had survived the war, and those that did were prosecuted as traitors and either imprisoned or sent to labor camps in far eastern Siberia.  Their families were heavily monitored.  That Andrzej had even been able to get a job was fairly surprising.  
  
"We are from Warsaw originally and most of the family didn't survive the Uprising."  Andrzej looked out over the rooftops of Katowice's industrial complex and bared his teeth bitterly.  "On the upside though, no one was around long enough to be too openly anti-Soviet.  My parents fled to Zakopane right after the war and had me. Dad's been a pretty useless drunk since as long as I can remember so I guess we just weren't considered that much of a threat.  After martial law was declared, though, and the borders were tightened up, they stopped accepting my visa applications.  But," Andrzej turned back to Ben and made a show of finger-combing his hair back into a semblance of order, "it's been lifted now.  I got a respectable hair cut, bought a car, and started ironing my shirts.  I'm practicing for my next visa interview, in which I will be doing my best impression of a hard-working and industrious citizen of the Polish People's Republic."  
  
He buttoned and tucked in his shirt, straightening the collar and pulling a serious face, "What do you think?"  
  
With his shirt still stained and rumpled and paint smeared across his forehead, Andrzej's solemn expression was more a mockery of decorum than anything else.  
  
Giving in to sudden impulse, Benek brushed back a strand of hair from Andrzej's temple, guiding it into place from where it had escaped the hasty finger-combing.  Andrzej leaned into the touch and Benek sunk his fingers further into his soft red hair, stroking it back and out of his face, then pausing to cradle the back of Andrzej's neck, rubbing his thumb through the short hair at his nape.  Andrzej's serious expression softened and his eyes fluttered shut momentarily, thick golden lashes standing out against smooth white cheeks.  Benek ran his thumb over a globby patch of paint that had crusted behind Andrzej's ear.  
  
"I think you're just bitter you've been forced to give up chewing tobacco."  He gave a cheeky grin, showing off his dimples, and ruffled his hand forward through Andrzej's hair, his fingers catching on tangles and dried paint.  "Unless you've been making Dolph smuggle more back to you, like the unrepentant addict you probably are."  
  
Andrzej batted his hand away and laughed.  "Oh, shove it up your ass.  I'll have you know that I ran out not two weeks after we last met and have been clean and dry ever since."  
  
"Yeah, there's no way you quit tobacco cold turkey, I call bullshit."  
  
"Give me some credit, asking someone to smuggle chew into Poland in their hand luggage is a bit pathetic and I like my lungs just the way they are, thank you.  I will not be smoking at any point in this lifetime."  
  
Benek just kept grinning and waiting expectantly with raised eyebrows.  
  
"Okay, fine, I tried snuff a few times but it gave me nose bleeds at altitude so I stopped."  
  
Benek burst out laughing, "Only you could quit chewing tobacco, possibly the most disgusting habit imaginable, only to replace it with an even more disgusting habit."  
  
"Ha, ha, very funny."  Andrzej threw Ben a mock glare.  "Just for that: lunch break's over, back to work, you."  
  
========================================  
  
The days went by quickly.  They would paint all morning and then break for lunch on the top of the smokestack, relaxing for three quarters of an hour or so while they ate, and then start painting again until the early evening, when they would stop to clean and reset everything for the next day.  Everyone was left to determine their own lunch breaks so sometimes Benek and Andrzej would be joined by others, and sometimes they would end up eating alone, just the two of them.  
  
The first smokestack was fully painted by the end of the fourth day, just as planned, and they spent the better part of the fifth day staging paint and resetting everything.  Then, in another four days that one was done as well.  Benek had never been a part of a work project where everything had gone so smoothly and so according to plan.  It seemed there were certain advantages to operating outside the constraints of standard administrative and bureaucratic oversight.  
  
That is not to say that there was no oversight at all; Andrzej provided plenty of administrative oversight all on his own.  He would show up every morning at six on the dot, gather everyone for a quick team meeting to go over the goals for the day, discuss any issues or questions that might have come up, and relay any administrative updates regarding the continuing operation of the Steelworks itself.  He must have been in separate communication with plant organizers because Benek never saw them and when Andrzej said the second reactor would go out of service on the fifth day, it went out of service on the fifth day.  
  
After getting over the initial shock, Ben began to enjoy seeing Andrzej as he was first thing in the morning, coiffed and calm and in control.  His hair would be slicked perfectly to the side, the lines of his pants ironed crisp and straight, and his collar starched and buttoned tight under his chin.  He held perfect posture as he laid out the plan for the day like it was an army field campaign, gesturing imperiously with one hand while keeping the other held against the small of his back, rather than shoved indecorously in his pocket.  When they would walk to the smokestacks, and Benek would hold back, allowing Andrzej to go first and climb ahead of him.  Andrzej must have cleaned his boots every night, because when Benek looked up, he would see neatly scrubbed soles on the bottom of clean leather boots flying up the metal rungs above him, Andrzej's deceptively strong shoulders flexing against the fabric of his perfectly pressed shirt.  
  
Then Andrzej would disappear down the side of the smokestack and they wouldn't really see each other again until lunch.  Over the next few hours, some sort of alchemical transformation of sun and wind and fresh air would take place so that by lunch, all semblance of decorum and propriety would have fallen away from Andrzej like an ill-fitting coat.  Benek would pull himself up over the lip of the smokestack to find him in some state of recline with his shirt partially unbuttoned and untucked, and his hair sweaty and disheveled, too short to be properly matted but trying to go that direction nonetheless.  He would be sunburned and paint-smeared and smiling so contentedly, it would make Benek’s chest tight just to look at.  
  
On one particularly hot day Andrzej had ditched his button-down altogether and Ben had found him eating lunch in a ratty and threadbear undershirt with his trousers rolled up to the knee.  There were old yellow sweat stains under the armpits and the neckline was stretched out and had partially detached from the rest of the shirt, revealing the generous swell of strong shoulder muscles and the dip and delicate curve of a collarbone.  He must have gotten a little dehydrated as well because his lips were chapped and he kept biting at them as they talked, until they were red and swollen.  
  
For the next few days Benek watched those lips slowly peal and crack.  On the third day the lower one had split when he had smiled and it had bleed a little onto his teeth.  
  
Then, after nine days of work, it was all done.  
  
It was barely two in the afternoon and they were already coiling up their ropes in the parking lot and splitting the take.  Dopheld had been right, the pay was good and, almost more importantly, Andrzej had negotiated for it to come in the form of U.S. dollars.  
  
The Polish economy, barely limping by even before the institution of martial law, was, at this point, in a state of crisis.  Shortages were standard and ration cards were required to buy even staple products like milk and sugar.  In response, a parallel shadow economy had developed that ran only on Western currencies.  The U. S. dollar could be used to buy Western goods that were otherwise unavailable, but Polish banks wouldn't exchange Polish złotys for dollars.  This became doubly problematic for climbers who both wanted access to higher-quality Western gear and who needed Western cash for their climbing expeditions.  No bank in Kathmandu or the Hindu Kush would accept accept Polish złotys in exchange for anything.  
  
Andrzej latched the rear door of his hatchback, "I'm going to grab some food before heading out, anyone else want to come?"  They had worked through lunch, wanting to be finished, cleaned up, and gone before the factory turned into a madhouse at four o'clock for the shift change.  
  
"What, no gourmet lunch today?  Did you give your wife the day off?"  Renata tossed the comment over her shoulder as she packed away her own gear along with Dopheld's and Phasma's into the back of little green hatchback.  
  
"You didn't know?" Jędrzej groused, pulling Andrzej in for a quick hug as he said his goodbyes, "Honek is one of those modern European confirmed bachelor types.  He cooks, he cleans, he knits his own sweaters."  
  
"Oh, that's so cute, you'll make someone a very good wife one day.  As long as you wear a dress and go to bed with the lights off, I doubt anyone will ever know the difference."  Renata continued to tease as she closed up the back of her car and walked towards them.  
  
Andrzej held her gaze, matching her slightly vicious smile with one of his own, "That's sweet of you to say.  You know, I was going to ask you to help me carry my bags earlier, but I was afraid you might need both hands free to hold your dick out of the way so you don't trip on it while you walk."  
  
"And on that note, ladies, I will be heading out."  Jędrzej patted both Andrzej and Renata on the back, shook hands with the rest of them and folded himself into his car with a, "Keep in mind what I told you and get back to me if you change your mind," thrown over his shoulder at Dopheld.  
  
"Will do!"  Dolph called after him as the car pulled away.  He turned back to Benek and Andrzej, putting out his hand to shake.  "Thanks for the invitation, but I think we'll eat in the car.  I need to get these ladies home."  
  
Renata leveled him with a pointed glare.  
  
"And by that I mean, these ladies need to get me home," he corrected, laughing.  
  
They all shook hands, Ben and Dolph promising to meet up later in the winter to talk about their plans for climbing Broad Peak again, and Phasma silently rolling her eyes and shaking her head as Dopheld and Renata goaded each other on their way to the car.  
  
Before climbing in with them, Phasma looked over, nodding once in Benek's direction, "It was good seeing you again, Ben," then turned to Andrzej, "Honek, you're phone's back on?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"Good, we'll be in touch about climbing this winter."  
  
"Anytime."  
  
Then it was just the two of them standing in the parking lot by Andrzej's beat-up white Fiat.  
  
"Well," Andrzej turned to Benek.  He had patted his hair back into some semblance of order and tucked in his shirt, rolling down the sleeves and refastening the cuffs, but still looked deliciously wind-swept and rumpled.  His chapped lips had healed and he was wearing chapstick to keep them that way.  They looked soft and pink against his teeth as he smiled.  "You have two options.  Either come eat with me, and I'll give you a ride home, or leave me to eat by myself and take the bus.  It makes no difference to me, I've been watching this one street vendor set up outside the main gate everyday at noon for over a week now and I have no idea what he's selling, but I'm going to enjoy it whether you come with me or not."  
  
Ben laughed.  "You?  Jonesing for street food?  Lead on."  
  
Andrzej shrugged as he turned to walk across the parking lot.  "Zakopane isn't a big town, I don't get it very often."  
  
They found the food cart Andrzej had been spying on for the past week and a half set up outside the main gate, just as predicted.  The man there was selling zapiekanki, a kind of grilled, open-face baguette layered with sauteed mushrooms, melted gouda, ketchup and chives.  It smelled delicious and, with the extra cash burning a hole in his pocket and Andrzej smiling and laughing beside him as he ordered, Benek he decided that the bit of bread and hard sausage he had packed with him for lunch could wait to be eaten another day.  He bought two.  
  
They made their way back through the parking lot with their food, letting it cool in their hands as they walked before leaning up against the bumper of Andrzej's car to eat.  
  
Andrzej tested the temperature of the melted cheese carefully with the tip of his tongue then, finding it satisfactory, took a bite and leaned back with a contented sigh.  Benek's mouth watered in sympathy, Andrzej had a way of enjoying food sometimes that made him hungry just to watch.  
  
Andrzej chewed slowly, then swallowed, cracking his eyes open to look out over the parking lot.  "Well, the view is definitely not as good from down here but this," he lifted the baguette in his hand, "is everything that I wanted out of today so I really can't complain."  
  
Benek grunted in agreement, turning away to take a bite of his own food as Andrzej looked in his direction.  He finished his first baguette and had started in on his second before he trusted himself to look up again.  "Thanks for letting me join."  
  
"Hmm?"  Andrzej was eating at a much more sedate pace, as was his habit.  
  
"Thanks for letting me join," Benek repeated, "it was a good crew you put together."  
  
"Oh, yeah, you knew most of them I take it?"  
  
"Jędrzej and Dolph, obviously, and Phasma a few times, but just on acclimatization hikes, nothing big.  This was my first time meeting Renata though.  I knew who she was but we'd never really met."  He paused to eat, then started again.  "What's her problem, anyway?  I had heard she had a chip on her shoulder but didn't know if I should believe it or not until now."  
  
Andrzej hummed in consideration as he picked the mushrooms off of his baguette, popping them one by one into his mouth.  "Rey?  She can get a little defensive sometimes.  I think it's just instinct for her at this point.  I don't really blame her.  
  
"I mean, I get shit sometimes for my hair or for being skinny or for, I don't know, everyone gets shit every once in awhile over something.  You probably catch flack for being as big as two Sherman tanks stacked on top of each other.  But, at the end of the day, I'm white and I'm Catholic and I'm a man and, I guess the Soviets aren't completely happy with my family history right now, but that's not something that everyone knows and I don't necessarily have to live it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  
  
"Rey, though, she’s thirty-two and everyone still looks at her like she's this tiny little girl.  Every time she summits, it's called into question.  Did she really reach the summit?  Did she carry her own pack?  Did she do it on her own strength or did some man just lead her up the whole way on a short rope?  I'll never have to know what that's like."  
  
Andrzej had gotten very serious as he talked and Benek watched him frown as he chewed, the previous contentment wiped from his face.  
  
"Yeah, well, I still don't see myself signing up to be on a rope team with her anytime soon and, judging by how you kept your distance as well, I doubt you will either, though you were awfully eager to make plans with Phasma."  Benek couldn't help the tiny note of bitterness that leaked into his voice.  
  
Andrzej looked over, blinking in surprise at the aggressive tone, then crooked his head to the side with a slightly confused frown.  "Just because I can sympathise does not mean I like her.  She's okay when Phasma's around though, or, that's true most of the time anyway.  I think Phasma and Dolph might be engaged and Rey is worried she'll lose her climbing partner to domesticity and," he waved his hand vaguely, "womanly duties."  
  
Benek stared at Andrzej, his mouth full and jaw half-frozen mid-chew.  He furrowed his brow and swallowed quickly.  "Dolph and Phasma are engaged?"  
  
"Well, I don't think they've made the announcement yet, but they will be soon."  Andrzej raised a pale eyebrow.  "Didn't you just come back from sharing a tent with Dolph for a month in Pakistan?"  
  
"We didn't share a tent the whole time, only when we were away from basecamp."  Ben replied, defensively, "and we didn't really talk about our personal lives that much."  
  
"Obviously."  
  
The conversation continued as they finished their food, and climbed into Andrzej's Fiat to leave.  Or rather, Andrzej climbed into his Fiat and Benek stayed outside to push while Andrzej popped the clutch and fed gas to the engine to get it started.  He was clearly old-hat at this little song and dance because they got it going on the first try.  
  
Benek grinned over, buckling his seatbelt as they pulled away from the parking lot.  "What was your big plan gonna be if I had decided to take the bus home?"  
  
"Get real, as if you were ever going to turn down my generous offer."  Andrzej smiled teasingly as he slid his eyes over to look at Ben in the passenger seat.  
  
Benek laughed and lifted his hands in surrender, "Touché."  
  
Fifteen minutes later, they were pulling up to the cement slab apartment block where Benek lived with his mother.  Ben hopped out and retrieved his rope and harness from the trunk before slamming it closed and coming around to the driver's side window to say goodbye.  Andrzej had stayed in the car to keep the engine running, it tended to not idle well.  
  
"Thanks for the lift, next time I see you it'll be at 8,000 meters, then?"  
  
For a second, Ben thought he saw a shadow pass over Andrzej's eyes, but then it was gone and he was smirking, "You better believe it."  
  
He held out slip of paper to Benek.  "In case you ever find yourself in the Tatras and in need of a climbing partner."  
  
Benek smiled and took it, "I guess I'll know who to call."  
  
Then he straightened up and waved, watching Andrzej's car pull away and disappear around the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Coming Spring_ is a novel by Stefan Żeromski (1925). Set during the reconstruction of Poland between the first and second world wars, it deals a lot with the expectations and dreams the older generation had for the reconstruction of Poland and the disillusionment of what that reality really looked like (all, as you can imagine based on what happened just before and just after, was not as idyllic as hoped). 
> 
> Both Broad Peak climbs did take place in roughly the manner described but I didn't spend too much time pouring over route descriptions so I'm sure anyone who has actually ever climbed Broad Peak would read this and be like: 0_o??? WTF?? What rocky outcropping?? To them I say: -_-;;
> 
> Poe Dameron's climbing career is based on that of Reinhold Messner, an Italian mountaineer (technically from the autonomous province of South Tyrol, where most of the population speaks German). He holds many records in Himalayan mountaineering including being the first to ever ascent Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen (1978). He was also just generally an explorer and adventurer. He crossed the Gobi Desert alone and was the first to cross Antarctica and Greenland with neither snowmobiles nor dog sleds. He’s an interesting dude and wrote a bunch of books, Werner Herzog made a documentary about him in 1984 called _Gasherbrum._
> 
> Finn's career is based on Nazir Sabir, who was the first person from Pakistan to climb Mount Everest. He also summited four of the five 8,000 meter peaks in Pakistan and worked as an environmental advocate, raising awareness of the environmental effects of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan.
> 
> Dopheld Mitaka’s climbing career is based on that of Wojciech Kurtyka. He was the first to ascend the Trollveggen (Troll Wall) in Norway in 1973 (the highest vertical cliff on the continent, it's pretty infamous among climbers). He climbed in the Himalayas in the 70s and early 80s. His ascent of the west face (Shining Wall) of Gasherbrum IV in 1985 is considered one of the 10 most impressive climbs of the 20th century.
> 
> Renata Kamińska’s (Rey's) climbing career is based on that of Wanda Rutkiewicz. She was the first woman to successfully climb K2 (1986). She was an active Himalayan climber in 80s and early 90s and successfully climbed eight 8,000 meter peaks (Everest was her first in 1978).
> 
> Phasma's career is based on that of Anna Czerwinska, who was the first Polish woman to reach the seven Summits (highest peak on each continent). She climbed multiple 8,000ers and became the oldest (at the time) woman to summit Everest in 2000.
> 
> As previously mentioned, Andrzej’s career WAS based on that of Leszek Cichy, but, as of the beginning of this chapter, it deviates drastically. Leszek Cichy climbed all over the world throughout the 80s.
> 
> The whole thing with them painting smokestacks is based on real events. I didn't really research the logistics of how this went down though. I somewhat assume it was mostly under the table, but I don't know if they would have been paid in US dollars. Most of the info in here should be somewhat correct but I didn't realize when I wrote this that having US dollars was actually illegal at the time (though this was not heavily enforced?? I guess?). Just, in general, always keep in mind that I'm not, in anyway, an expert on any of this.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr [harlanhardway](https://harlanhardway.tumblr.com/) and check out the [Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.de/harlanhardway/climbing-the-curved-earth/) page!


	3. The Deluge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is depressed, Andrzej makes him feel better about life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name Refresher:  
> Kylo Ren = Benek/Ben  
> Armitage Hux = Andrzej/Honek 
> 
> Please take note of how much I do NOT know about daily life in the Polish People's Republic. The characters in this story lead kinda atypical lives but still, keep in mind that I am not Polish, nor am I a Polish scholar and have taken a lot of liberties. Also: my endnotes are even more excessive than normal. I somewhat gave up on reigning it it, sorry about that.
> 
> As always, thank you [MargaretKire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire/) ([mothdustmouth](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/) on tumblr) for all your help and support :)

  
  
It was raining.  It had been raining for the better part of a month and the whole world felt wet.  
  
You couldn't do anything when it rained like this.  Benek opened the door to the apartment his shared with his mother and stood, dripping water all over the entryway.  He could see his mother's house shoes still sitting neatly in their spot on the shoe rack and her jacket and umbrella were missing from their hook by the door.  He called out once, just to be sure, "Mom!" and got no answer, then he stripped down right there in the entryway, letting his clothes fall into a sodden pile on the floor, and continued, naked, through the apartment to the bathroom.  
  
Grabbing a towel and flicking on the water heater under the sink, he went back to collect his wet clothes.  He scooped them up in his theoretically water-resistant jacket to catch most of the drips, and carried them back to the bathroom to ring them out and hang them to dry while the water heated for his shower, before returning to wipe up the puddle of rainwater he had left on the linoleum tiles in the entryway.  
  
The light on the water heater clicked off as he came back into the bathroom, so he turned on the shower, stepping into the tub and sighing as he allowed the hot water to hit his back.  Then scowled as he remembered: there was no shampoo and hadn't been since before he had gotten back from Nepal in February.  He had been washing his hair with bar soap and brushing his teeth with baking soda for over two months, but still lived in hope that new toiletries might appear at any moment in the bathroom.  
  
Martial law had been lifted four years ago but the effects of it still lingered.  That, combined with ongoing sanctions by the West, had resulted in crippling national debt and a chronic shortage economy.  No sugar, no coffee, no tea, no milk, no fucking shoe leather: this was normal.  Price controls and ration cards had been instituted and were enforced, but if the stores were empty, no ration card in the world could change that.  Even God had needed five loaves of bread and two fish to start off with before He could feed the multitudes.  
  
Rinsing the last of the soap out of his hair, Benek turned off the water before it could get cold and toweled himself dry, slipping into his house shoes as he combing his hair in front of the mirror.  The coal mine had closed early and would stay that way with production put on hold until further notice.  There was too much rain.  The mine engineers ran pumps year-round to keep groundwater from seeping up into the mineshafts and they had been running the pumps double-time since the end of March to compensate for runoff and the rising water table from the rain, but it had finally become too much.  
  
Benek wandered into his bedroom, toweling off his hair and keeping an ear open for the sound of his mother coming home.  It wouldn't be the first time she had caught him wandering through the apartment naked, but at age thirty he felt that reenacting those particular childhood memories was an experience he would prefer to spare them both.  
  
His room was small, just big enough for a double bed, an indulgence for which he was immensely grateful, a chest of drawers that also functioned as bedside table, and a wall of climbing equipment, carefully sorted and stored in boxes out of the damaging glare of the sun.  Over his bed he had taped up photographs of the Karakorum Range as well as magazine cut-outs of the two Polish Olympic gold medalists Władysław Kozakiewicz and Stanisława Walasiewicz, Kozakiewicz gesturing in defiance to the jeering crowd as he accepted his medal.  
  
He threw his towel into the hamper and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and a long-sleeved nylon-blend undershirt.  He stretched his arms experimentally.  The shirt had been one of his favorites to wear on climbing trips in his early twenties.  Nylon wicks sweat away from the skin much more efficiently than wool or cotton and whatever blend this one was felt softer and less like plastic than most synthetic materials.  However, it had developed a hole under one arm and for that reason had slowly gravitated to the bottom of his underwear drawer.  He had also, apparently, gotten bigger since he last wore it.  Instead of handing soft and loose around his shoulders, it stretched and pulled uncomfortably.  He could feel the fabric strain against his back as he bent forward to put on a pair of loose-fitting track pants.  
  
Sighing in resignation, he pulled the shirt back up over his head, and threw it onto a corner to be dealt with later, then shrugged into a wool button-up and wandered into the kitchen in search of something to eat.  
  
In addition to no shampoo and no toothpaste, there was also no meat, no sugar, no milk, and definitely no coffee in the house.  He set the kettle to boil anyway and pulled down the coffee pot and a can of inka.  A coffee substitute made mostly of toasted rye, barley, and chicory, inka had no caffeine content and tasted, arguably, not unlike burnt toast.  Some people claimed to like it, but Benek mostly drank it because the alternative was hot water.  
  
When the water boiled, he poured it over a few spoonfuls and set an egg timer for three minutes, then settled by the window with a couple slices of bread, cheese, and a jar of pickles.  He ate and looked out the window at the rain while he waited for his ersatz-coffee to brew.  
  
Six months ago on the summit of Lhotse, Poe Dameron had became the first man to climb all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks.  Since reclimbing Broad Peak in 1984, Benek had been climbing faster and harder than anyone else.  He had climbed Dhaulagiri, Cho Oyu, and Nanga Parbat in 1985, and Kanchenjunga, K2, and Manaslu in 1986, and Annapurna I in February of the current year, 1987, all of them either winter ascents, or by new routes, or both.  He had only to reach the top of Shisha Pangma before he too had climbed all the 8,000ers and that trip was already planned for the coming September.  It had taken Poe fourteen years to get all fourteen peaks and, if the September climb goes well, it will have taken Benek seven and he will have done it on his terms and to his standards.  But he will have still lost.  
  
Benek looked out over the grey, drab streets, ruled over by a grey, drab sky, from the window of his grey, drab, cement-slab apartment.  He drank his bland ersatz-coffee and thought about his mother, probably out on a three-hour trip to the butcher's shop, standing in line with the hope that were will be something to buy when she finally gets to the front of it.  It all just felt so pointless.  
  
Benek's eyes drifted over to the phone, mounted by the door next to a small pinboard.  
  
It was spring and the coal mine would be closed for at least a week.  His next climbing trip wasn't until September so he didn't necessarily need the money.  Even if it did reopen, he did not need to go back to work right away.  
  
There was a scrap of paper pinned next the phone.  It had been buried under various lists , notes, addresses, and other phone numbers that had amassed over the last few years, but Benek knew it was still there.  He had looked at it so often he had the number memorized, but had only called it maybe three times, and all three of those times had been brisk and businesslike: confirming details of a job or asking directions to a worksite.  But no one was painting anything until at least June when the weather was more reliably clear.    
  
Benek picked up the phone anyway and dialed before he could think twice about it.  
  
"Hello?"  The voice on the other line was cold and distant, Benek could almost hear it rattle through kilometers of copper wire before it reached his ears.  
  
"Hello, I'm looking for Andrzej Hilewicz."  
  
"Speaking."  
  
"Oh, hi, it's Benedykt Sobolewski."  He leaned against the doorframe and scratched at his nose, trying to remember his reason for calling.  "We've met a few times."  
  
"Benek!"  Andrzej's tone completely changed, Benek could feel him smiling on the other end of the line and found himself grinning in return.  "Does this mean you're finally going to drag your sorry ass back to the Tatras, or are they too small and piddly for you now that you're a world-famous Himalayan climber?"  
  
"I'm not famous," Ben grumbled uncomfortably.  "The mine's flooded so we're all out of work and," he shrugged, even though Andrzej couldn't see it, "I was thinking of doing some Spring climbing."  
  
"Well that was your first mistake, thinking when you could be packing.  I'll make it easier for you: boots, harness, rope, jacket and all the food you can get your hands on.  Pack it into your car and I'll meet you in the parking lot for Kościelec Pass at seven AM sharp tomorrow morning."  
  
"Sounds good."  Benek smiled into the phone.  
  
"See you there."  
  
"Bye."  
  
Andrzej clicked off and Benek hung up the receiver, only then realizing how tangled he had become in the cord.  He must have been twisting it around his fingers while he talked.  
  
Smiling like an idiot into the receiver and twisting the phone cord around his fingers like a fourteen-year-old girl, he thanked god his mom hadn't been home to see that.  
  
======================================================  
  
Benek pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead for Kościelec Pass at five after seven the next morning.  The sky was still grey and dark as he looked for Andrzej's fiat with his headlights, pulling up next to it when it came into view.  Andrzej got up from where he had been sitting on the rear bumper and came around to Benek's driver's side door to greet him with a quick hug as he got out.  
  
"Benek, you're late!" he exclaimed, smiling, his eyes crinkling up in the corners.  "I should chew your ear off for it, but I'm going to give you a pass this time."  
  
"A pass?  On tardiness?  I thought that was one of the seven unforgivable sins, best not forgive me too quickly, you'll start a dangerous precedent."  
  
"Well, the next person to put up a beautiful line like you did on the south face of K2 last year will get a pass as well. But, between you and me, I sincerely doubt I will ever have to make good on that promise."  
  
Benek laughed and shook his head, pulling out his daypack and locking his car.  "Most people thought that line was stupid, suicidal, and that we shouldn't have even tried it."  
  
Andrzej adjusted his jacket as he clipped the waist strap of his backpack around his hips.  "Yeah, but what do you think?"  
  
"I think... I wish Tadeusz was still here."  
  
"Did he think it was a good line?" Andrzej settled his backpack over his shoulders and started heading towards the trailhead at the end of the parking lot.  
  
Ben followed.  "He thought it was a suicidal line.  But he was fucking ecstatic that we climbed it."  
  
Andrzej hummed and looked back consideringly.  "There are a lot of ways to be suicidal, at least you chose a good one.  It was a good line."  
  
There wasn't a whole lot to add to that statement, so Ben just nodded and continued on up the trail.  
  
They hiked all morning and into the early afternoon, heading south to the less popular but slightly higher southern summit of Zadni Kościelec.  The northern summit formed a beautiful granite massif that drew the eye and offered much more interesting climbing.  Unfortunately, it also tended to draw lightning throughout the spring and early summer, which Benek assumed to be the reason they were headed for the milder slopes to the south.  
  
He continued to assume this right up until they actually reached the southern summit and Andrzej did not stop.  Instead, he lead them over the top and down to a lower shoulder on its southwestern side, where a weather station and radio tower stood facing the Czechoslovakian border.  
  
It was still early spring and there was snow on the ground.  The temperature had been below freezing when they had started the day, but it had been warming up as the sun rose.  Still cold but now above freezing and raining lightly, Andrzej set his pack down in the windbreak behind the weather station and proceeded to pull out a ground cloth, an umbrella, and a neatly packed lunch in a plastic sack.  
  
Benek starred.  "You brought an umbrella."  
  
He looked at Andrzej's pack which was still suspiciously full.  "You brought an umbrella and your pack isn't even empty yet.  What else do you have in there?"  
  
Andrzej winked as he arranged himself, sheltered from the rain and insulated from the wet ground.  "I prefer only to be miserable when I'm climbing something interesting, now do you want under the umbrella or are you going to sit in the rain on principle?"  
  
Benek needed no more invitation than that, he dropped his pack and squeezed himself into the space Andrzej had left for him under the little collapsable umbrella.  Though the view was somewhat obscured by the weather station and radio tower, they were out of the wind and it was still considerably better than the view Benek had left behind in Katowice, looking out onto the street from his kitchen window.  They ate quickly, huddled up together against the cold and the wet and, surprisingly, Andrzej finished first.  He was normally such a slow eater, but this time he had wolfed his lunch down, barely coming up for air before taking one last bite and putting away his lunch bag as he chewed.  
  
He fumbled around with his pack for a minute, pulling a few things out and shoving them down the front of his coat to keep them clear of the rain.  Benek watched with curiosity as Andrzej stood, wandered over to the radio tower, and started climbing it.  When he reached the top, he spent a few minutes fiddling around with something, then climbed back down, thoroughly soaked through.  His hat had been pulled off and had been caught in the hood of his partially unzipped jacket, and he was cradling something against his chest to protect it from the rain as he slipped back under the shelter of the umbrella.  
  
It was a radio.  
  
Benek laughed, Andrzej had hauled a drop-cloth, an umbrella, a radio and a collapsable radio antenna to the top of a mountain and was now attempting to get reception.  "What are you doing, trying to contact the space station?"  
  
Andrzej ignored the comment.  "Here, hold the umbrella steady and tilt it a bit forward."  He adjusted Benek's hold on the umbrella and repositioned the radio as he turned the dial, getting nothing but varying degrees of static.  He had relinquished his place under the umbrella almost entirely to the radio and water was running in rivulets down the back of his jacket, but he did not seem to notice or care as he continued to fiddle and adjust until, almost like magic, a station came in, loud and almost perfectly clear.  
  
_Heir ist Uli Scheuppel mit Radio 100, es ist kurz vor 14.00 und Sie wissen was dass heißt!  Ja, ab 14.00 kommt Johannes Beck mit der Slime-Line Show, also schalten Sie nicht weg!  Ich verabschiede mich mit dem neuen Hit von Rick Astley, "Never Gonna Give You Up."  Bis zum nächsten Mal, Berlin, ich werde Sie nie aufgeben!_  
  
Andrzej slowly let go of the radio, as if nervous that the second he stopped touching it the transmission would dissolve into static again, then stood with a laugh and a triumphant smile as music started to come through, almost drowned out by the sound of the rain but still coming in clearer than Benek would have ever thought possible.  The musical introduction played and Benek smiled, nodding his head in time with it.  He wasn't sure if it had been worth the effort of hauling all that equipment up the mountain, but it was kind of fun to have music.  Then Andrzej started singing.  
  
Ben just about died.  The song was some kind of an electronic bubblegum pop song but Andrzej was screaming out the lyrics like it was underground Norwegian metal band.  
  
"We're no strangers to love!  
You know the rules and so do I!  
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of!  
You wouldn't get this from any other guy!"  
  
Or at least, based on what was coming out of the radio, Benek was reasonably sure that was what Andrzej was shouting.  It was definitely shouting or screaming, not singing.  What Andrzej was doing could be called a lot of things but singing was not one of them and his English was so heavily accented it was largely unrecognizable as a language.  By the time the chorus rolled around Benek was laughing so hard he couldn't keep the umbrella straight anymore.  He tried to calm himself, closing his eyes and taking a deep, cleansing breath, then looked back up again.  
  
"Never gonna give you up!  
Never gonna let you down!  
Never gonna run around and desert you!"  
  
Benek collapsed into a fit of laughter again, it was too much.  Andrzej had left his hat, abandoned under the umbrella and pulled his hood pulled back, exposing his hair to the rain.  It had grown in the last few years so that it was brushing his shoulders again and had matted up at the nape of his neck from being trapped under the collar of his coat all morning.  The hair around his face was dark from the rain and stuck to his forehead and cheeks.  There was a big rusty smear down the side of his face from where he must have been leaning against the rusty metal frame of the radio tower as he had adjusted his antenna.  His eyelashes were dewy and wet.   The rain was coming down hard now but he only smiled wider, shaking the water from his face and shouting out unintelligible lyrics in a voice that was nowhere in the vicinity of on pitch or in key.  
  
Andrzej looked ridiculous, like a half-drowned rat, dancing in the rain to West German radio pirated off an illegal relay station somewhere in Czechoslovakia.  But watching him and laughing, Benek wasn't sure he had ever been more happy in his entire life.  
  
After the song was over, the program changed to some German talk-radio show and Andrzej turned it off, then scurried back up the radio tower to retrieve his antenna before wrapping the whole thing back up and carefully packing it away into his backpack again.  
  
"I can't believe you hauled all that all the way up here for one song."  Benek commented, shaking his head and still laughing to himself about Andrzej's positively abysmal singing.  
  
"And yet, one-hundred percent worth it for the look on your face alone."  
  
"I think the look on my face was less caused by the radio station and more by your singing."  
  
"Maybe so but," Andrzej held up one finger, "I can't break out my world-class singing voice just anywhere.  If I started singing in the street, people would be so impressed and in awe it could cause traffic accidents.  Extremely talented people, such as myself, have to be careful about things like that."  
  
"Yes, absolutely, your voice definitely would cause traffic accidents.  In fact, your singing might cause brain aneurysms.  Let's not risk it.  From here on out, please, no more singing, and where on earth did you learn you English?  I thought mine was bad, but that was just atrocious."  
  
"Yes, well some people, unlike yourself, have not been allowed out of the country in seven years and have thus not had the motive nor opportunity to practice their, as you put it, atrocious English."  Andrzej's voice was still light hearted but Benek couldn't see his face.  
  
"Shit, sorry, I wasn't thinking."  
  
Glancing back over his shoulder, Andrzej meeting Benek's eyes for a moment.  He was still smiling and his gaze was light and teasing.  "It's fine."  
  
=========================================  
  
Andrzej lived in what looked to be the attached garage of a larger house on the outskirts of Zakopane.  He helped Ben unload his car, then directed Ben to follow him a few blocks down and park behind him in front of an empty lot.  
  
"The owners don't like it when I park in front of the house," Andrzej explained as he opened the the side door into his little garage-turned-studio apartment.  
  
"It's a pretty good arrangement.  I pay in cash and they charge me a flat rate on electricity and water.  There was already a bathroom on this side of the house too, so routing in water wasn't much of a problem."  
  
Benek looked around.  It was actually much nicer on the inside than he had expected.  Stepping inside onto a clean concrete floor, he looked around at the makeshift kitchen that the front of the garage had been converted into.  There was a sink, and electric oven, and a small refrigerator as well as counters and cupboards, none of them matching and some of them rather shoddily homemade, but all clearly well cleaned and cared for.  The back half of the garage, behind a homemade kitchen island complete with three rickety looking bar stools, opened out into a living area.  The cement floor had been carpeted over and there was a bed pushed against one wall, as well as a couch and a TV, a chest of drawers, a bookshelf crammed with books, papers and various odds and ends, and, of course, the obligatory wall of climbing equipment.  One corner was awkwardly walled-off to hide what Benek assumed was the toilet and a drying rack had been set-up in front of the couch, blocking the TV.  Benek smiled to himself when he saw the telephone on top the TV, imagining Andrzej answering the phone the evening before as he laid out his laundry.  
  
They both stripped out of their wet cloths over the cement floor in the kitchen before rushing to pull on sweats and house shoes.  Andrzej immediately started the kettle, then brought the drying rack into the kitchen for them to spread their sopping wet things onto.    
  
He tossed Benek a towel for his hair.  "Did you need a bath or should I get a start on dinner?"  
  
"A bath?"  There was clearly no room for a sink, much less a bathtub in the very literal water closet in the corner.  
  
Andrzej pointed to a big plastic tub leaning against the wall by the refrigerator, it looked like it had been originally designed as a horse trough.  "It takes a while to get enough water heated for a full bath, but not as long as you might think."  
  
Benek looked over at the horse trough, then back at Andrzej in disbelief.  "I don't care how much water you heat.  That," he pointed at the plastic tub, "will never constitute a full bath."  He walked over to inspect it more closely, then climbed in and attempted to fold himself up adequately to sit inside.  His knees ended up almost by his ears and it pressed in awkwardly on his ribs where his chest started to widen up to his shoulder.  "How do you even fit in this thing?"  
  
Andrzej sniffed and turned to wash his hands in the sink.  "Well excuse me, Princess, I didn't realize that a hardcore mountaineer such as yourself would have such demanding self-grooming requirements."  
  
"Holy shit, is this shampoo!"  Benek had noticed the basket of toiletries set next to the plastic tub.  "And toothpaste!  Oh my god, I've changed my mind, I want a bath.  Please, please can I have a bath?"  
  
"No, my hospitality is, apparently, not up to your standards.  I would hate to subject you to the inadequacy of my bathing facilities."  Andrzej had not turned around but Benek could hear the smile in his voice anyway.  
  
"Please!"  Benek struggled out of the bathtub and skipped over to the kitchen.  "You have a lovely home and an angelic singing voice and, god, are cooking me dinner, and I brought coffee!"  He dug around in his bags for a second and pulled out an unopened tin of coffee.  His mother had returned from the store the night before with two entire tins of coffee and Benek had bargained for one of them, even though he really hadn't needed to.  If he had let her, his mother would have given both to him with a kiss on the cheek and a promise to be safe and never tell her about any of his climbing exploits.  
  
"Real coffee?"  
  
"Real coffee," Benek confirmed, handing the tin over as proof.  
  
Andrzej opened it and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and smelling the coffee grounds.  They were probably old and definitely stale but they still smelled delicious and exactly like coffee.  He looked over at Benek through hooded eyes.  "If you're good and help peel the potatoes, then tomorrow I'll let you use my shampoo."  
  
"Deal."  
  
It was a little easier to get certain products like eggs and milk further away from big urban centers and Andrzej had managed to pull together all the ingredients for bulvių plokštainis, a kind of casserole made of potatoes, bacon, milk, onions, and eggs.  It was fairly quick to throw together and then they were left with about an hour and a half to wait while it cooked.  
  
Andrzej wandered over to the TV and turned it on, throwing himself length-wise down on the couch in what was clearly a practiced maneuver, leaving Benek to stretch out on the carpet.  The reception was terrible and there was only one channel that came in at all clearly, but it was playing a rerun of _Alternatywy 4_ , which was pretty decent as far as state-regulated television programming went.  _Alternatywy 4_ was a satirical comedy that had narrowly squeaked past the sensors only very recently and Benek genuinely liked it, but he had already seen the episode they were playing and wasn't finding it nearly as funny or as riveting as he usually did.  
  
He propped himself up on his left elbow to watch, then switched around to this other side, sat up, then laid down to the left again.  Squirming around and repositioning himself, he felt Andrzej prodding him in the back with his foot, and unspoken request that he please choose a position and settle down already.  Benek rolled onto his back, then groaned and flipped over onto his stomach and started doing pushups to get rid of his excess energy.  
  
"Really?  We hike all day in the pouring rain and now you're doing pushups."  
  
"I'm just antsy, I can't help it."  
  
Andrzej laughed.  "God, no wonder you're so big."  
  
Benek pushed himself up faster so he could lift his hands off the ground and clap in between pushups.  
  
"Okay, okay, stop for a second, clearly this is not challenging enough for you."  
  
Ben pressed up into a plank and stopped, looking over questioningly.  
  
"Alright, hold that for a second."  Andrzej stepped over to Benek's back to straddle his waist, facing towards Benek's feet.  He reached back to take a firm hold of his shirt with both hands and then sat down just between Ben's shoulder blades, bringing his feet up to rest on the back of his legs.  "Okay, now try."  
  
Pausing for a second to find his balance, Ben slowly started to lower himself and Andrzej towards the floor until his nose just barely brushed the carpet, then carefully pushed back up again.  He continued steadily through ten repetitions, then fifteen, while Andrzej counted each one out loud.  
  
"Jesus Christ, are you kidding me right now?  Seventeen."  
  
"Eighteen."  
  
Benek started to shake and his muscles froze as he hovered just over the ground.  
  
"Come on, you can do it, don't you dare give up on my!  Don't stop now, that's just pathetic!  Yes!  Almost there!  Come on, push down already!  Nineteen!  You can make it to twenty, I know you can, don't fucking give up now!"  Andrzej held perfectly still, balancing his weight over Ben's shoulders as he shouted encouragement and abuse.  
  
Benek was shaking hard now and his form was starting to fall apart as he slowly lowered towards the floor before haltingly raising back up.  
  
"Come on, push down!  Don't be a quitter, you can do it!  Yes!  Five more centimeters, it doesn't count till your elbows lock!  Dig deep!  Twenty!"  Andrzej dropped his feet to the floor and stood up just as Benek collapsed to the ground underneath him.  "Jesus Christ Benek, I know I'm smaller than you but I'm not that much fucking smaller."  
  
Rolling over onto his back and stretching his arms out limply on either side of him, Benek groaned.  "Trust me, if anyone knows how not small you are right now, it is definitely me."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Andrzej smiled down at him, poking him lightly in the stomach with his foot.  "Twenty's not too bad, even for a softy like you."  
  
Benek grabbed the foot and pulled Andrzej down on the floor next to him.  "Not too bad?  Not too bad?  I challenge you to do better."  
  
"Oh, please, don't get into a competition with me, I will crush you without even trying."  
  
"Your tiny ass couldn't crush a fly if you sat on it."  
  
"Fuck you very much, Big Shot, you're in my house now.  Nobody talks shit about me in my house and gets away with it."  Andrzej rolled over onto his stomach and pushed up into a plank.  "Well?  Let's do this thing."  
  
"You're not serious."  Benek sat up as Andrzej looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.  "You're not serious."  He repeated.  "I will crush you."  
  
"Then," Andrzej replied slowly, as if explaining something to a small child, "I guess there will be more food for you, now won't there?"  
  
"Jesus Christ."  Benek got up to straddle Andrzej's back, trying to balance his weight across Andrzej's narrow shoulders as he gripped his shirtsleeves with both hands and pulled up his legs.  "Have I told you recently how fucking crazy you are."  
  
"Not recently enough, apparently."  Andrzej grunted out as he slowly lowered himself towards the ground, then pressed back up again, exhaling loudly.  
  
"One."  
  
Andrzej lowered back down again, his arms cramping up and starting to shake as he pressed back up.  
  
"Two"  
  
He lowered down and pressed up again.  "Three."  
  
Halfway to the ground on the fourth push up his arms gave out and both Andrzej and Benek crashed onto the carpet with a loud groan.  
  
"Three, I am actually impressed."  
  
"Oh my god, get your fat ass off of me, I can't breath."  
  
Andrzej swatted weakly at Benek, still groaning, as Benek rolled off, laughing.  
  
"You were right, you crushed me, I am utterly and completely crushed.  I can't lift my arms, you're going to have to take dinner out of the oven, and maybe feed me, a fork would be much too heavy right now."  Andrzej moaned, curling up into the self-arrest position on his side.  
  
Benek only laughed louder, springing to his feet as the kitchen timer went off and sprinting over to the oven.  He opened the door and peered inside.  "How do I tell if it's done?"  
  
"You ask me."  Despite his protestations, Andrzej had followed him into the kitchen and crowded up against Ben's side to poke at the casserole with a fork experimentally.  "Looks good enough to me, let's eat."  
  
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, they ate, drank enough tea to drown a horse, and then, luxury of all luxuries, brushed their teeth with real toothpaste, and shuffled off into bed, Andrzej in his bed in the corner and Benek curled up on the couch.  Despite the uncomfortably cramped sleeping accommodations, Benek found himself drifting to sleep almost as soon as his head hit the upholstery.  
  
======================================================  
  
The rain had started to lessen by mid May and shortly after that the mines had been mostly pumped clear of water, going back into full production by the end of the month.  Benek, with the promise of better money for less work painting smoke stacks throughout June, July and August and no real desire to crawl back into a dirty hole in the ground for the rest of the summer, decided to stay on in Zakopane and with Andrzej until he left for China to climb Shishapangma at the beginning of September.  Andrzej, for his part, seemed perfectly happy with the news that he had acquired a roommate, built-in climbing partner, designated co-pilot, and part-time pack mule for the summer.  
  
For the rest of April and the first half of May they mostly stuck to hiking, sniffing out the last patches of snow high in the Tatra Mountains until the weather finally started to clear.  When the weather was good and the granite rock faces a little less miserably wet and dangerously slick, they were finally able to do some real climbing.  Andrzej did most of the leading on long, drawn-out crack climbs.  He was better and more experienced in that style and knew most of the routes like he knew his own backyard.  Then, in mid June, Phasma and Dopheld came by for a quick weekend trip after they had all finished up a painting gig together in lower Silesia.  It had been decided by Ben, though he would later deny it, that the theme of the visit would be "Giants Crush Crack" and that Phasma and Benek would lead all of it.  
  
The first day started out fairly well; they had parked in the Karb Pass parking lot, close to the north peak of Kościelec and just down the road from the Kościelec Pass trailhead, where Benek and Andrzej had parked for their trek up the southern peak earlier in the year.  The weather was clear and the humidity low, so they had decided to brave the risk of thunderstorms and take a stab at the eastern face of the granite massif that was the northern summit.  At just under 300 vertical meters, basically six pitches, the climb was not a short one, but, for an experienced rope team, it was not necessarily an overly long one either.  They were climbing it as two completely separate rope teams, independent of each other.  Benek would lead up, setting gear and building an anchor at the top of the pitch, then belaying up Andrzej.  When Andrzej had cleared the rock, Phasma would lead up, again setting gear and building her own anchor at the top, then belaying up Dopheld, who would clean her gear off the route.  
  
Benek was the first climber, so his speed was the most significant time-limiting factor for both rope teams.  But, after a month of climbing with Andrzej, he felt he was moving fairly quickly.  That is, until he reached the fifth pitch.  The fifth pitch was a beastly offwidth that Ben didn't so much as want to look at, let alone climb.  
  
An offwidth crack is basically an awkwardly sized crack.  If a crack is too narrow to fit inside and climb like a chimney, but too wide for a proper fist or hand jam, then it's an offwidth and anything goes.  I climber might wedge a knee or an elbow or shove their shoulder into it and flex to hold tension, whatever they could find that worked.  
  
Benek was cursing and sweating, but continuing to make progress despite his misery and general dislike for everything about the style of climbing he was currently engaged in, when he got his leg stuck.  He got his leg stuck and he couldn't get it out.  He couldn't find a handhold or any combination of shoulder, elbow, and wrist, shoved into the crack, that would give him enough leverage to unweight his leg.  All the cracks he could see and reach were either too big or too small for a wire or a nut so he couldn't place gear and pull on that to get his leg out of the crack.  He ran his hands up and down the smooth granite, looking for a flake, an edge, a crystal, anything he could get a hold on to pull himself up and off his stupid stuck leg.  His hands were sweating and his leg hurt and was starting to cramp, but that wasn't even the worst of it.  
  
"Benek!"  The worst of it, was that he was only about twenty feet up and well within eyesight of Andrzej, who was belaying him from below.  "Stop flailing and climb!  Use the crack!"  
  
"My leg's stuck!"  
  
"What do you need your leg for?!  Your bicep is the size of my fucking head!  Pull down!"  
  
"This bullshit crack is fucking awkward as fuck!"  
  
"How wide is it?!"  
  
"About as wide as two of my fists!"  
  
"Then brace your fucking fists against each other and pull down!"  
  
There was a pause as Ben tried it.  "That's terrible, unstable and awkward as fuck!  I don't like it!"  
  
"You don't have to like it!  You just have to trust it!  Set your hands and pull down!"  
  
Benek set his fists against each other, wedged into the crack, and flexed them tight.  
  
"You've got this!  Fucking ascend!  I'm not dragging your gigantic ass up this mountain, so climb!"  
  
Taking a deep breath, Ben pulled down on his empty fists as if he were doing a pullup around an invisible pull-up bar.  It held and he lifted his knee out of the crack, only to shove it right back in again about a foot and a half higher up.  He released the tension on his fists, then reset them just above his head and pulled down again.  
  
Below him, Andrzej was crowing, "Fucking right!  Ascend!  Ascend!  You've fucking got this!"  
  
"I fucking hate this bullshit crack!"  Benek shouted back down, continuing to inch-worm up the granite wall.  
  
"You don't have to like it, you just have to climb it!"  
  
After another excruciating thirty meters of offwidth, which Andrzej seemed to fucking fly up, the bastard, followed by a much more reasonable pitch of broken crack and slab climbing, they topped out on the north summit of Kościelec.  Pulling out their food and water they leaned back into the sun, sorting gear and waiting for Phasma and Dolph, who had been climbing right on their heels.  When Phasma's head appeared over the top, Benek clipped her into their anchor, which they had left up so Phasma wouldn't have to waste time building her own, and immediately asked her opinion of the offwidth pitch, hoping that she, at least, would be able to commiserate with his pain.  Phasma was in complete agreement and was only too happy to share her own opinions as to what, specifically, was the absolute worst part and where, specifically, Andrzej could shove his offwidth crack climbing ideas in the future.  
  
"At least you were climbing with a normal human being.  The absolute worst part of offwidth is the fucking misery of climbing with some masochist," Benek side-eyed Andrzej accusingly, "who seems to enjoy it."  
  
Phasma laughed, pulling more slack through her belay device as she brought up Dopheld.  "Oh, don't worry, I know exactly what that's like.  I climb with Rey and she loves offwidth, she's amazing at it too, practically levitates up the route.  It's not even worth watching, really, I have no chance whatsoever of copying a single one of her moves."  
  
"Except that you can't not watch because she's so good at it."  Dopheld appeared at the top of the route, pulling himself over the lip to join them at the summit.  "How is the wife, anyway?"  He had turned to Andrzej as he unclipped himself.  
  
Andrzej froze where he was lying, stretched out in the sun.  His eyes flew open for a second, then he closed them and, by increments, relaxed again, as if forcing himself to calm down.  He took in a measured breath and, with strained nonchalance, replied, "Fine, excellent, she climbed K2 last year."  He paused, "Or, I suppose as fine and excellent as anyone can be who climbed K2 last year, really."  1986 had been both a good and a bad year for K2 climbing.  Several records had been set and broken but, including Benek's climbing partner, and two climbers from Rey's expedition, thirteen mountaineers had died there that summer.  
  
There was a awkward silence for a few seconds.  
  
"Dopheld, you can be a real dick sometimes, you know?"  Phasma looked over at Benek from where she had been collecting her gear from her husband.  "Look, the Ministry of Internal Affairs was sniffing around Honek and, to some extent, Rey, a little too closely and Honek is in enough trouble as it is and Rey would rather keep her visa eligibility, so they got married.  That's it, the end."  She glanced over at Andrzej.  "I'm sorry me and my idiot husband are spreading your business all over the place but I know you and you would have just left it at 'I'm married to Rey' and that kind of miscommunication among friends is just not worth it."  
  
Dopheld's face, meanwhile, had fallen into a grimace.  "God, I'm sorry, Honek.  I didn't realize Ben wouldn't have known."  He glanced over at Ben, "You don't read the church bulletin do you?"  
  
"I'm not really religious."  
  
Dopheld continued to frown as he handed Phasma the last of her gear back to be sorted and packed away.  "I thought for sure at least Honek would have told you or something."  
  
"Honey, when have you known Honek to talk about anything even remotely personal with anyone, ever?"  
  
Andrzej, for his part, stayed where he was, lying in the sun with his eyes closed, seemingly pretending to sleep.  He did not move or comment until the conversation had shifted and they were getting ready to downclimb.  
  
============================================  
  
They did not talk about Andrzej's marriage again for the rest of the summer and Benek almost allowed himself to forget about it.  Andrzej did not wear a ring, there were no wedding pictures, or any pictures of Rey at all, really, up in his home, and when Rey showed up to help paint a smokestack in the outskirts of Wrocław, she and Andrzej both acted much as they had three years before.  Rey wore a ring though and Ben found himself staring at it.  Maybe he had somehow dreamed the whole conversation and Rey was really married to someone else entirely.  
  
Andrzej did wear a gold cross around his neck.  He always had and Benek had never thought much of it.  Poland was something like ninety-eight percent Catholic, it was probably weirder that Benek did not wear a cross.  It was definitely weird that Ben didn’t go to church, but Andrzej did not appear to go to church either, or at least he hadn’t while Ben had been visiting for the summer.  Benek looked at the cross and looked at the ring and wondered what it all meant.  
  
Apparently all this staring and wondering had not been as subtle as he might have hoped because, one afternoon, Rey was waiting for him when he came up the side of the smokestack for another can of paint.  
  
“You shouldn’t be so quick to judge, you know.”  
  
Benek looked down at his hands as he clipped another can of paint to himself.  “I’m not judging anyone.”  
  
“Don’t pretend you’re not staring.  I’ve seen you staring and judging.  Life is so easy for you.  You don’t know what it’s like to be different, to have to fit in in every possible way that you can because there are some parts of you that you will never be able to change, that you will always be attacked for.”  
  
Benek looked up, feeling irritated and defensive.  “Hey, we all know what it’s like to be different here, we’re all Polish.  My father fled to the West and never came back.  My grandfather was Jewish.  Everybody has their troubles, but not everybody feels the need to complain about it all the time.”  
  
Rey’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him and her mouth tightened into a thin line.  “Yeah, poor you with your loving mother and your big nose.”  She grabbed her own paint can and walked away towards her side of the smokestack.  
  
==================================  
  
Three days later, the painting project was over, and then two weeks after that it was already the middle of August and Ben suddenly found himself scrambling to pack up.  He had promised to spend the last two weeks of August with his mother before catching the plane to China on the thirtieth and time had somehow caught him by surprise.  Sorting his dirty socks out of the hamper where they had mixed in with Andrzej's ratty and greying undershirts, he shoved all of his dirty clothes into a stuff sack and packed up his climbing gear while Andrzej pulled the car around.  
  
Andrzej helped him load up the car and then stood there, in the driveway in front of his little garage apartment, looking uncertain.  
  
Benek drank him in, the way his hair hung around his face, catching the afternoon light and glowing copper and gold where it had been bleached by hours spent in the sun.  He had been fastidious about sunscreen but had still broken out into freckles that shread across his nose and cheeks and down his chest where his collar bones always peaked out of the neckline of his shirt.  His hands were shoved into the pockets of his favorite pair of green corduroy shorts, now over seven years old and worn almost smooth to the point where Andrzej didn't repel in them anymore, only wearing them for hikes or lounging around the apartment on a hot day.  The freckles extended down both legs, swirling around his knees and Benek watched them move and shift against his pale skin as Andrzej shifted his weight from foot to foot.  
  
Benek's eyes were drawn back up to his face as Andrzej bit his lip.  It looked soft and pink.  
  
"About what Dolph said about Rey and me."  
  
Benek nodded, shifting his gaze up to Andrzej's pale green eyes.  Strawberry blond eyelashes fluttered closed and back open again.  
  
"It's not.  It's like Phasma said.  They were already watching me, are already watching me and it's just.  She's doing it for me.  She says she's doing it for her too, but mostly it's for me.  I can't give them any more of an excuse, it's bad enough as it is.  It's just.  I can't."  The golden eyelashes shuttered closed again and deep frown lines dug themselves in between strong eyebrows.  The lashes blinked open again.  "Something had to give.  I can't live like this.  You understand?"  
  
The look on his face was almost pleading, and Benek let out a breath of air that he hadn't realized he was holding, in a long exhale.  
  
He stepped forward and pulled Andrzej into his arms.  Andrzej didn't move at first, keeping his hands where they were in his pockets, but after a second, he turned his head to bury it in Benek's shoulder.  
  
Benek reached up to stroke his long, soft hair.  "I understand, Andrzejek.  It's okay."  
  
Andrzej nodded into his shoulder, staying there for a minute or two, not saying anything.  
  
When he did step back, his eyes looked tired, but he was smiling again, if only very slightly.  Benek returned the smile and reached out to brush a strand of hair out of Andrzej's face before climbing into his car.  As he pulled away, he watched Andrzej in his rearview mirror turn and disappear back up the driveway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Deluge_ is a historical novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1886). It is the second volume of a three-volume series known as "The Trilogy." The Trilogy dramatizes major historical events during the height of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (17th Century). _The Deluge_ tells the story of a soldier and a nobleman during the period called the Deluge from 1655-1660 (basically the Swedish invasion and occupation of the Commonwealth).
> 
> Stanisława Walasiewicz won gold in the 1932 Olympic Games for the 100m dash. After her death in 1980 and autopsy was done that revealed her to be intersex.
> 
> Władysław Kozakiewicz won gold in the 1980 Olympic Games for pole vault. The games were held in Moscow and he was booed by the Soviet crowd. As he accepted his medal, he made a gesture towards the crowd that is now known as “Kozakiewicz’s gesture.” The Soviet ambassador to Poland wanted him stripped of his metal and the official response was that his arm gesture had been caused by an involuntary muscle spasm.
> 
> Reinhold Messner (Poe) was the first climber to ascend all fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters.
> 
> On July 7, 1986, Jerzy Kukuczka (Benek) and Tadeusz Piotrowski climbed the south face of K2. K2 is known as the "Savage Mountain" because about one person dies for every four who summit it. Kukuczka and Piotrowski's climb was the first and, to this day, only climb of the south face of K2. Piotrowski fell to his death on the Abruzzi Spur on the descent.
> 
> This whole scenario with Andrzej and the radio: I have no idea if this would have been remotely possible. I'm somewhat basing it off of East Germans tapping into the West German station Radio 100 during this time but... obviously Poland was further into the Soviet Bloc, not to mention Kościelec would be kinda a weird place for radio towers and, logistically, a radio signal reaching a tower there would be unlikely and just... whatever, I liked the idea and you're welcome for the Rick Roll.
> 
> I'm actually not sure what would be an impressive set of weighted pushups would be. I am assuming Andrzej is strong, but mostly lean so at 6'1" he's probably a 180lb guy and Ren, at 6'2" is probably around 220lb?? Maybe?? Twenty pushups with anywhere near 200lb on your back sounds damn impressive to me.
> 
> Operation Hyacinth was a secret mass operation of the Polish communist police to register all Polish homosexuals. The operation lasted 1985-87 but files were added until 1988. These files are now called the "pink card index" and members of the LGBT community have since asked the Institute of National Remembrance (a government-affiliated organization est. 1998 that investigates the history of Nazi and Communist crimes committed in Poland pre-Revolutions of 1989) to destroy these files but the request was denied. Thus, to my knowledge, this database still exists. You did/do not want to be on it.


	4. Glass Houses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the world changes and the phrase, "cured of what we're suffering from and suffering from the cure," suddenly makes a lot more sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: at the beginning of the end notes
> 
> Don't mind the little history lesson here at the beginning... I think it's interesting stuff but I promise there will be, you know, cute redheads and stuff once you skim down a few paragraphs.
> 
> Check out the work of my lovely beta reader [MargaretKire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire/) ([mothdustmouth](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr)! Also, a special shout-out to [Ascel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ascel/pseuds/Ascel/) ([dobranocka](https://dobranocka.tumblr.com/) on tumblr) for answering some of my Polish questions (all errors are 100% my own).

  
  
Climbing mountains was a strange business.  Some aspects were highly technical, requiring coordination, planning, and hours upon hours of detailed research and physical training.  Everything from rock type to relative humidity to the angle at which the sun's rays hit the earth at a given geographic latitude affected and changed the way snow packed and ice formed.  
  
Benek smiled to himself, these were the details that Andrzej enjoyed.  Ben had seen him spend an entire evening pouring over a geology text on the formation of granitic plutons, presumably so that, should his travel status ever be reinstated, Andrzej would have the necessary background knowledge to write a full dissertation on the formation and geologic makeup of Mt. McKinley before flying to North America to climbing it.  
  
But Benek also knew that, at its heart, mountain climbing was neither reasoned nor logical.  Mountains were sacred places where gods lived, that drew lightning and spit fire, where wise men sought enlightenment and brave men, adventure.  Mankind had climbed Everest, Mt. McKinley, K2 and all the other great peaks of the world and should mankind ever need to go back, there were much easier ways of doing so than by foot.  One could take a helicopter, for example.  But reaching the summit was only the goal of mountaineering, and not the point.  
  
Kangchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world, had technically never been summited.  The mountain was worshiped by the people that lived around it and the British expedition that had first climbed it had promised the local government that they would leave the summit untouched.  They, and all other climbers that came later, even after the government had fallen and changed hands, stopped just short of reaching its highest point.  
  
Everyone had their own reasons for climbing, but there were very few for whom the primary purpose was merely to reach the summit.  
  
In early October of 1989, Benek found himself in a milk bar on Mickiewicza Street in downtown Katowice.  He had been using the location as a gathering point for coordinating and planning an expedition up the fourth highest mountain in the world, the Nepalese Lhotse.  Benek had summited it before, it had been his first 8,000 meter peak exactly ten years previously, and it had been the last 8,000 meter peak climbed by Poe Dameron, making him the first man to climb all fourteen of the highest mountains in the world.  In September of 1987, barely a month after leaving Andrzej's garage apartment in Zakopane, Benek had become the second.  Now they would be climbing together on a fifteen-man international expedition to conquer something new, the unclimbed South Face of Lhotse.  To Ben, it felt like full circle, and like the beginning of something new, though that could have just been the general atmosphere around him, rubbing off.  
  
In Poland, the year had been a tumultuous one, to say the least.  The pressures that had been building since the late 70s had finally come to a head.  A Polish pope, John Paul II, had been elected in 1978 and he had brought international attention to the fate of Poland post World War II, as well as pride and unity to the Polish people under the Catholic Church.  Solidarność, or Solidarity, an illegal labor union started in 1980, had given Polish workers power in the form of civil resistance.  More than one third of the working-age population of Poland was involved in Solidarność and it was supported by the pope.  
  
After years of economic depression and social unrest, the nation-wide strikes that swept Poland through most of 1988 had finally been the straw that broke the back of the Communist Party.  Early in 1989, unprecedented Round Table Talks were called between Solidarność, the government, and the church and by March trade unions had been legalized and elections called for the newly formed Senate and office of President.  On June fourth, the same day of the Beijing massacre in Tiananmen Square, Poland held the closest thing to a free election since 1928 and the Solidarity Citizens’ Committee, Solidarność’s newly formed political party, swept the Senate and lower chamber of parliament in a landslide.  By August Poland had formed, under the newly appointed prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first non-communist led government in the Soviet Bloc.  
  
The new economic strategy was ‘shock therapy;’ Poland was to be turned into a market economy as soon as possible.  State owned enterprises, such as heavy industry, were being privatized and the country was preparing for entry into the global economy.  The coal mine where Benek worked had been closed off and on for most of 1988 and into 1989 due to strikes, labor negotiations, and privatization. There were rumors that the steel industry would not survive in the global marketplace and if the steel industry did not survive, the coal industry wouldn’t either.  On days when the mine was open, Benek would work and on days when it wasn’t, he would meet with the other climbers in the milk bar on Mickiewicza Street and pour over maps of Nepal and photographs of Lhotse and sew patches into torn jackets and new straps onto worn out backpacks, rub sealing wax into leather climbing boots and fit them for crampons and plan.  
  
The man who ran the place was an old alpinist from way back in the day, Zygmunt Klemensiewicz.  A pioneer in Polish alpinism during the interbellum period, Zyga was so old he could remember going to school with a portrait of the Tsar Nikolaus II of Imperial Russia hanging on his classroom wall.  He let them meet in the dining room of the milk bar after closing and store some of their gear in the back, which was where Benek was now.  He was inventorying everything they had and compiling lists of everything they still needed and would have to wait till they were in Kathmandu to get, when he heard Zyga grousing at someone in the other room.  
  
“We’re closed!”  Milk bars were basically low-cost cafeterias for people who didn’t have access to a company mess.  They generally only stayed open for an extended lunch hour, till four at the very latest.  It was now approaching five o’clock.  
  
“I said, we’re closed!”  Zyga continued, in response to three sharp wraps, presumably on the big window that overlooked the street in the front of the dining room.  Ben could hear him unlock the front door and the sound of the rain as he opened it to better yell at whoever was standing outside.  “Working hours are clearly posted, get your grimy fingers off my glass!”  
  
“But Mr. Klemensiewicz, sir, I’ve traveled so far and in such terrible weather.  Couldn’t I at least get an autograph?”  The voice was light and teasing and positively dripping with sarcasm.  Benek put down his checklist.  Even muffled by the rain and the partially closed door, he recognized that voice.  
  
Coming out of the back room and into the dimly lit cafeteria, he saw Zyga usher in a rain-soaked figure in a dark poncho with the hood pulled up.  “Honek, you could at least have had the decency to identify yourself before you started smearing up my glass.  You wouldn’t believe the punk kids that are running through the streets these days at all hours.”  His tone had become no less cantankerous, but wasn't overtly hostile, which, for Zyga, was about as close as one could hope to get to a warm welcome.  
  
A quick flick of delicate fingers flipped back the hood to reveal a head of bright red hair.  Andrzej quirked an eyebrow.  “Yes, all those dangerous ruffians out and about at four forty-five on a Saturday, what is the world coming to?  I was serious about that autograph though, you know I’m a big fan.”  He flashed a wide smile.  
  
Back in the thirties, Zyga had written one of the first mountaineering guides to the High Tatras.  There were only a few copies floating around and Benek had never seen one, but it didn’t surprise him that Andrzej had.  
  
“Don’t patronize me, Mr. Hilewicz, I won’t tolerate it.  Now what do you want?”  Zyga was an eighty-year-old climbing legend and incredibly generous with his support, but he was also a crotchety old bastard.  He called Ben a degenerate, uneducated good-for-nothing on a regular basis, just before serving him a meal, offering him free use of the building, and refusing any offer of compensation.  
  
“I’m just here dropping something off, I heard the Lhotse expedition was organizing out of your place, is that true?”  
  
“True enough, that Sobolewski keeps coming around and leaving his shit piled everywhere.  He's in the back right now.  Benek!”  
  
They both turned towards the back room and Ben waved awkwardly from where he had been watching.  
  
Andrzej’s face lit up and he started to walk over, then remembered himself and paused to wipe off his feet and strip out of his dripping wet poncho, revealing the rope bag he had slung over his shoulder.  As he turned to thank Zyga, Zyga stopped him, clasping his hand in a firm handshake and looking at him solemnly.  “If you need food, or a place to sleep, you come here, Honek, understood?  You deserve to make something of yourself.  Don't fuck around, you need something, you come here.”  
  
Andrzej frowned and pressed his lips together into a stubborn line, then nodded, “Thank you, Zyga, I appreciate that.”  Zyga shook his hand firmly and then released it with an answering nod.  Having said his piece, he turned his back and retreated to the far corner of the cafeteria, where his expense reports were spread out across a table.  
  
Ben watched the exchange, frowning mildly as Andrzej approached.  “What was that about?”  
  
Andrzej shrugged and waved Benek towards the backroom.  “The embittered curmudgeon reveals his soft gooey center, he’s secretly a worrier, it's fine.”  
  
Benek looked Andrzej over.  They hadn’t seen each other for awhile, not since the previous summer.  Now that he had gotten over his initial excitement, Ben could see why Zyga might be worried.  Andrzej looked tired and drawn.  He had always been lean, with narrow shoulders and narrower hips, but he had never been frail.  He had been strong and slender, an athlete, with a hint of softness just under his chin and a fullness to his cheeks.  When he had smiled, his face would round out, his high cheekbones would disappear into his dimples and he would tilt his head back ever so slightly, as if opening himself up to the sky.  Benek sometimes imagined that if Andrzej were to take his shirt off, there would be a tiny bit of padding over his stomach, just enough so that if Ben were to press his face against it, it would be soft, like a thin down comforter thrown over hard glacier ice.  
  
There was no softness to Andrzej anymore.  His skin was freckled and sun kissed and his hair was as red and unruly and as beautifully soft looking as it always was, but Ben did not like the way Andrzej's wool sweater hung off his frame.  When they shook hands, he did not like how slight Andrzej's wrists looked, sticking out of the cuffs of his shirt.  He did not like how the dark bags under Andrzej's eyes looked like bruises.  It made Benek's stomach ache and something in the pit of it feel hollow and uncertain.  
  
“Why is he worried?”  
  
Andrzej smiled ruefully, looking over the gear that Ben and his team had amassed, “I enrolled in university, moved out of my place in Zakopane.  It’s good.  The world is changing, I’m going to need an education, but I just got here and money’s tight.  You know how it is.”  
  
“You’re here in Katowice now?”  
  
“Two weeks ago today,” Andrzej confirmed.  
  
Benek felt himself smiling, “You’ll have to come to dinner, my mother would love you.”  
  
Andrzej nodded, returning his smile.  “I’d like that.”  
  
“I leave for Nepal in two days so, when I get back.”  
  
They stood, facing each other, smiling and nodding.  Andrzej looked away first, a blush rising high in his cheeks as his smile became soft and secretive.  Ben could see him biting at the inside of his mouth, trying to get his face back under control.  He had gotten slightly wet in the rain and Ben watched a drop of water roll down his face and neck and disappear under the collar of his shirt.  Ben's breath hitched and he felt his ears burn.  
  
Andrzej unslung the rope bag from his shoulder.  "I have something for you.”  He unclipped the tie-offs and pulled out the rope, shoving it into Benek’s hands.  "Here."  
  
“What?”  Benek accepted it out of instinct.  It was an alpine rope, light-weight and either new or very close to it.  His brain kicked online again and he shoved it back towards Andrzej.  “No!  I can’t take this, this is yours.  You need this.”  Good quality ropes were expensive and hard to come by, there was no way Andrzej had a spare one just lying around somewhere.  This was his lead rope, his best rope, the one he trusted to withstand long, dynamic falls.  
  
“I’m in university now, like I said.  I don't need it, I'll get another.  We'll be on the global economy soon so in a few months they'll be easier to find anyways.”  
  
“Andrzejek, I can’t take this,” Ben tried to press the rope back into Andrzej's hands.  
  
“Yes you can.”  Andrzej dodged out of the way, flicking Benek in the forehead.  “I’ve seen that shit fixed line you climb with, it wouldn’t take a ten meter fall with me on the end of it, much less you.  You’re going to retire it and use this.”  
  
“That’s why it’s a fixed line, it doesn’t need to take a fall.”  
  
“Benek, don't bullshit me."  The laughter had fallen out of Andrzej's voice and he folded his hands behind his back, his eyebrows tilted downwards into a frown.  "I've seen the South Face of Lhotse.  It's been a while, but I remember what it looks like.  Take the fucking rope."  
  
He stayed there for a moment, looking across at Benek, sober and calculating, then sighed and ran a hand through his hair, offering up a slightly apologetic smile.  "You won the fucking Olympics didn’t you?  Here’s your prize, now shut up about it.”  
  
“I didn’t win the Olympics, they made me a member of the Olympic Order.  It's an honorary award, not a competitive one."  
  
Andrzej rolled his eyes.  “They literally gave you a medal, at the Olympics.  What more could you possibly want?”  
  
Ben bit his lip and looked up with a shy smile.  “A rope would have been nice.”  
  
Groaning dramatically, Andrzej covered his face in his hands.  “You are the worst.”  
  
“I know.”  Ben clutched the rope tightly to his chest.  He felt giddy and warm all over.  Andrzej lived in Katowice now and had given him a rope and they would see each other again when Ben got back from Nepal.  He reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of Andrzej’s face.  Andrzej looked up and Ben kept his hand where it was, lightly running his fingers over the soft hair and looking into his pale green eyes.  It was like looking out over a forest that was covered in fog.  
  
When Benek got back from Nepal, he would have Andrzej come over to meet his mother, and then Ben could suggest that he move in with them.  Leia was sure to love him, so she would be fine with it and Andrzej would be less worried about money and would be able to sleep more and Ben could sleep on the couch, and it would be fine.  
  
Benek stroked his thumb very gently under one of Andrzej's tired eyes.  Everything would be fine.  
  
========================================  
  
Sitting in an ex-pat bar in Kathmandu across from Jerzy Drzewiecki, Benek was drinking what he considered to be one of the most well-deserved beers the bartender had probably ever served to anyone in his twenty-three-year-old backpacker lifetime.  Settling back into his chair, Ben smiled to himself and took a long, self-satisfied drink.  The only thing that could have made his day feel more complete, was if Andrzej were there, reclining in the chair next to him with his head tilted back to bask in the sun as was his wont after a good climb.  Andrzej would be drinking tea instead of beer and maybe chewing tobacco.  
  
Closing his eyes, Ben could just picture it: Andrzej's cheeks would be wind burned and his hair tangled, he would have a tan line around his eyes from his sunglasses and his nose would be smeared with white zinc oxide to prevent a sunburn.  He would have slid down in his chair with his legs stretched out under the table until his body formed one clean line from foot to hip to shoulder and he would be sighing softly to himself in contentment and satisfaction.  Sadly, however, it was not Andrzej, but a delegate from the Ministry of Tourism who was seated next to Benek, a fact which Benek decided was much too depressing to ruin his lovely afternoon by acknowledging.  Jerzyk could answer the man's questions, he needed to practice his English anyways.  
  
Ben and Jerzyk had summited just two days earlier.  The expedition had started up Lhotse in mid October, making camp at the base of the South Face.  From there they had studied and probed the 3,000 meter wall, looking for a path up it, a key that might unlock it's secrets.  On the twenty-third, thinking they had found a way, Ben and Jerzyk had made a summit push.  After a day of hard climbing, they had been forced to bivy on the face, making it to the top late in the morning of the twenty-fourth and then climbing down by way of the normal route on the West Face.  
  
Dameron had been a good expedition leader.  He was one of the best climbers Ben had ever met and Ben respected him, but he did not like him.  Poe was smart and handsome and outgoing in a way that made Ben feel stupid and ugly and socially stunted.  Sometimes Ben felt he climbed mountains by sheer brute stubbornness and refusal to turn around, whereas Poe would find the magic line, the sweet spot in the face.  Poe would plan the perfect route, wait for the perfect weather window, and then run up and down the mountain again like he was playing capture the flag, almost with a wink and a smile.  Poe had thought the route Ben and Jerzyk had chosen up the South Face was ill-advised and inelegant.  He was probably right.  
  
"Thank you, sirs, for agreeing to meet with me.  I understand I am to congratulate you on your successful climb.  I just have a few quick questions regarding the details of the final ascent, if you would be so kind as to introduce yourselves for the record and confirm who it was, exactly, that made it to the summit."  
  
Jerzyk looked over at Ben, his English was decidedly not good and the man had spoken with an odd Australian accent layered on top of his Nepalese one, making him especially difficult to understand.  Ben played dumb and took another drink of his beer.  This promised to be fun to watch.  
  
"Summit, yes.  Me, Jerzy Drzewiecki, and expedition leader, Benedykt Sobolewski.  We summit, yes."  Jerzyk had at least understood the question and was making a valiant effort to communicate.  
  
"You and Mr. Sobolewski made it to the top of Lhotse via the South Face on October the 25th, 1989.  Can you confirm that?"  
  
Jerzyk glanced over at Ben, dates and numbers could be hard to follow, especially when spoke that quickly.  Ben nodded at him.  
  
"Yes.  Summit.  No yesterday, day," he gestured behind himself, trying to indicate the day previous to yesterday.  
  
"Can you relate to me the events leading up to your reaching the summit?"  
  
Jerzyk shot Ben another beseeching look, which Ben pointedly ignored, then turned back to the Minister of Tourism.  "Sun up, we," he mimed stretching and yawning, "we climb.  Rope," he mimed pulling on a rope.  "Rope, no.  No rope.  We, rope."  He mimed waving goodbye to the rope.  
  
The Minister of Tourism frowned, looking confused.  "You lost your rope?"  
  
"No.  No lost rope," he mimed pulling at the rope again.  
  
"Your rope got stuck?"  
  
"Stuck, yes, rope stuck.  No rope.  Bye bye rope."  
  
"Your rope got stuck, so: bye bye rope?"  
  
Benek bit back a laugh and took another sip of beer.  He changed his mind, far from ruining his afternoon, this promised to be the most enjoyable meeting he had ever had with a government minister in his entire life.  
  
"Two rope.  We climb.  Bye bye Benek."  
  
"Benek?"  
  
"Benedykt.  Bye bye Benedykt."  
  
Benek sighed and leaned back.  That was maybe another reason he was in such a pleasant mood on this particular day.  Andrzej had been right.  Shortly after Ben and Jerzyk had gotten their primary rope stuck and been forced to abandon it, Benek had taken a lead fall.  The force exerted on a rope from arresting a lead fall is massive.  A 200 lb man falling twelve meters with three meters of rope stretch will generate 1,000 lb of force.  Reduce the rope stretch to one meter and it jumps to almost 3,000 lb of downward force.  Fixed lines were designed neither to stretch nor take dynamic falls and had Andrzej not been so insistent that Benek have a second climbing rope, Ben would have been leading on his old fixed line.   It was more than likely that Andrzej's rope had saved his life and Ben couldn't wait to see the smug look on Andrzej's face when he heard about it.  
  
============================================  
  
Benek was back in Katowice a little over two weeks later, sorting through gear in his bedroom.  Not everyone had come back on the same flight so they were still using the milk bar as a gear drop and Zyga, having gotten sick of opening up for them as they decompressed and shuffled gear around, had just given Benek a spare key.  The Polish economy was in such turbulence that most of the climbers were either out of work or only partially employed and, admittedly, without anything better to do, the whole process was taking quite a bit longer than was probably necessary.  Benek didn't particularly mind, he was taking the opportunity to start organizing a climb up Kanchenjunga in the spring.  
  
Driving over to the milk bar with a bivy tent and camp stove that needed to be returned to Jerzyk, Benek let himself in.  The lights were on in the back, so he called out to announce himself, "Hey, it's me!  Just coming by to drop a few things off!"  
  
He heard a crash and something that sounded like a bottle being knocked over and rolling across the floor.  "Everything alright?"  
  
Ben made his way through the dining room.  Just past the bathrooms was the storage area where Zyga let them keep their gear and, as he approached, he could hear someone shuffling around back there.  
  
"Zyga?"  
  
Andrzej appeared in the open doorway, backlit, his shadow stretching across the floor in front of him.  
  
"Shit, Andrzej, you scared me.  What are you doing here?"  Recovering quickly, Benek walked forward, pleased and happy at the unexpected surprise.  "I just got in yesterday, I was going to call, get you to come over for dinner next week."  
  
Andrzej just looked at him, not moving from the doorframe.  "Benek," he took a slow breath, "you're here."  
  
"Yeah, we summited on the twenty-fourth, but decided to stay until our permits expired, no reason to hurry back really."  As he got closer, Benek began to see Andrzej more clearly.  If he had looked tired and drawn the last time Benek had seen him, he looked positively sallow now.  Sallow and tired and sad, like laundry that had been left out for too long in the sun.  His hair hung limp around his face and his eyes looked sunken and bruised.  His lips were dry and cracking and the color in his cheeks looked more feverish then flushed.  Ben couldn't tell if, under his thick wool sweater, Andrzej had lost more weight in the past month, but his cheekbones were so sharp it looked like a person could use them to shave.  
  
"Andrzejek, are you alright?"  
  
Andrzej was almost a height with Ben, but his normally pin-straight posture had collapsed in on itself.  His shoulders were hunched and rounded and when he looked up at Ben, his pale copper eyebrows furrowed into an expression of confusion and distress as if he didn't quite know how to answer.  It made Ben ache all the way down to his bones, and he felt cold, like all the light and heat had been sucked out of the room, leaving only an empty vacuum, like a dying star.  
  
Closing his eyes and leaning for a second against the doorframe, Andrzej turned and walked back into the storage room and collapsed onto the couch in the corner.  He curled up on it sideways with his feet drawn up in front of him on the cushions and one shoulder resting against the back.  Ben could see his shoulders rise and fall as he breathed steadily in and out.  
  
"Andrzejek?"  Feeling clumsy and uncertain, Ben sat down gingerly next to Andrzej's turned back, then reached up, very carefully, to touch his hair.  It was knotted and a little greasy, but still just as soft and vibrant as ever.  Benek slowly finger combed some of the tangles out and gradually, as if he were also working out the kinks and knots in Andrzej's whole body as he untangled his hair, Andrzej began to relax.  
  
Closing his eyes, Andrzej allowed his head to loll back against Benek's shoulder, exposing the smooth white line of his throat.  His lips were parted and he was breathing through his mouth, shallowly and slightly hitched.  One hand was trapped between his side and the couch back, but the other he had let rest on Benek's knee.  He drew slow and careful circles into the side of Benek's knee with his thumb as Ben continued to stroke his hair and massage his shoulders.  
  
Slowly, he melted back into Benek's chest.  His shoulders and arms went loose and his hips slid forward.  His legs, which had been drawn up tight against his front, gradually extended out and his knees fell open.  
  
Ben's eyes were drawn down to the juncture of Andrzej's narrow hips and long legs.  The hand stroking his red hair stilled and the other stopped where it had been tracing Andrzej's collarbone from over his sweater.  Andrzej cracked open his eyes to look up and him.  For a moment, neither of them moved, Benek unable to so much as breath and Andrzej simply watching him with hooded green eyes.  
  
Taking a careful, shaky breath, Ben began moving his fingers through Andrzej's hair again and continued running his hand across Andrzej's chest.  Andrzej closed his eyes and turned his head ever so slightly into Benek's neck.  Benek could feel his breath ghost, hot a humid, against his skin.  He knees stayed open.  
  
Benek drew a line with his eyes down the plains of Andrzej's thin chest to where his lumpy blue and white wool sweater rode up to show the ugly olive green polyester button-down he had on underneath.  Following with his hand, Benek traced the smooth plastic buttons of Andrzej's polyester shirt with his finger tips.  His breath quickened and he couldn't hear anything beyond the sound of blood rushing in his ears and Andrzej, panting hot and heavy against his neck.  
  
Benek's throat clicked as he tried to swallow, his mouth was bone dry and his heart was hammering in his chest.  He watched his own fingers trace the waistband of Andrzej's drab, grey trousers and then down the line of his fly to where it was tented, obviously and obscenely between his legs.  Andrzej's grip on Benek's knee tightened and he brought his free hand up, burying it in Benek's dark curly hair, and pressing his face into Benek's neck as Benek's hand explored his erection.  
  
Ben stroked him experimentally and Andrzej responded with a low moan.  He thrust up, rolling his hips and flexing his stomach muscles, gripping Benek's knee and then releasing it, letting his hand drift up to run along Ben's inner thigh.  
  
Ben had never felt more turned on in his life, he could feel his own erection pulsing between his legs as he stroked Andrzej through his trousers, Andrzej moaning and writhing against him.  He could feel Andrzej's hand in his hair and Andrzej's fingers against his inseam, as he thrust forward into Ben's hand and back against Ben's chest.  Ben felt drunk and stupid at the sight of it.  Slipping his fingers up the seam of Andrzej's fly and easing down the zipper, Ben pushed his hand inside to trace the line of Andrzej's cock through only the thin, soft cotton of his briefs.  Andrzej flexed his fingers in Benek's hair and let his mouth fall open in a groan against Benek's neck.  
  
Reaching down to cup his balls, Benek stroked up, finding the head with his thumb and massaging it through the cotton.  Andrzej bit down on his neck and arched up against him, shuddering and coming and Ben could feel a wet spot form under his hand as Andrzej spilled into his briefs.  
  
He pulled his hand out, his head still buzzing with his own arousal.  Andrzej had collapsed against him and was breathing hard, his hand still tracing back and forth up Ben's thigh and all Ben could concentrate on was the feel of Andrzej's eyelashes fluttering against the soft skin of his neck and the trajectory of the hand on his thigh.  
  
Then, suddenly, Andrzej tensed up, coughed and shuddered violently.  He half rolled, half lurched off the couch and to his feet, stumbling as fast as he could to the bathroom.  He threw open the door, and it bounced off the wall and slammed shut behind him as he disappeared inside.  
  
Ben blinked slowly, his brain trying to catch up with what had happened in the moment of silence that followed, then he heard the distinctive sound of a toilet seat being thrown up and violent retching coming from behind the closed bathroom door.  
  
It felt like being dumped head-first into an ice bath.  Listening to Andrzej throw up in the other room, Ben felt dread pool, cold and heavy, in the pit of his stomach as he looked around for the first time.  
  
By the back wall, a ceramic ashtray had fallen off the windowsill and onto the floor.  It was upside down and surrounded by ash and half-smoked cigarette butts.   An empty vodka bottle lay on the ground next to it.  There was a half-filled glass by his feet, next to the couch.  Ben picked it up and smelled it, then grimaced and put it down again.  
  
Andrzej was an alcoholic, it was one of the first things he had told Benek about himself and Ben had, he had fucking forgotten, and not noticed, and chosen not to see or to understand and he had...  
  
He wouldn't think about that right now.  
  
Ben allowed himself exactly ten seconds of self-pity and self-recrimination, rubbing his hands over his face and concentrating on breathing calmly and deeply as he counted them out before standing up and walking over to the bathrooms.  
  
"Andrzej?"  He heard a groan from one of the stalls and took his handkerchief out of his pocket to wet it in the sink before going to investigate.  
  
Andrzej was crouched on the floor, bent over a toilet with his head cradled in his hands.  Ben knelt next to him, carefully pulling Andrzej's hair back from his face and pressing the cloth to his forehead, then cleaning his face.  
  
"It's going to be okay."  Benek wiped the sick away from Andrzej's face, keeping his voice calm and steady.  "It's going to be okay."  It was going to be okay.  "Let's get you home."  Andrzej was going to be okay.  It was all going to be okay.  
  
==============================  
  
Ben didn't know where Andrzej's new appartment was and Andrzej was in no state to tell him, so he had been forced to call Phasma from the phone in Zyga's office.  Thankfully she picked up on only the second ring and was able to give him the address.  She seemed concerned, but not overly surprised when he told her that Andrzej was drunk.  
  
"Is there any voka left?"  
  
"Barely."  
  
"Bring it with you."  Her voice was calm and businesslike.  
  
"What?  Why?  He's fucking well had enough."  
  
Phasma sighed deeply over the phone.  "Look, this hasn't happened in a long time, in years, but I don't know how long or how much he's been drinking again.  God, I should have seen this coming but with rationing I just didn't, it doesn't matter.  The point is: if he's been drinking a lot, he can't just stop.  It doesn't work like that, his body could go into shock.  Just bring whatever is left, don't give it to him.  I'll meet you at his apartment as soon as I can."  
  
"Okay, I'll see you soon."  
  
Benek siphoned the last of the vodka from the glass by the couch back into the bottle and took it with him as he helped Andrzej outside and locked up.  The alcohol must have hit Andrzej all at once, either that or he was pretending to be more out of it than he was, because he was having trouble walking as Ben helped him to his car and strapped him into the passenger side.  The third option, that Andrzej had been this drunk and this incoherent from the very beginning was not a possibility Ben particularly wanted to think about.  
  
Ben had helped Andrzej refasten his fly after pulling him up off the bathroom floor, and was doing everything he could to not think about why that had been necessary.  Dwelling was not helpful or productive.  If Andrzej never wanted to see him again, Ben would accept that.  Whatever the fallout was, it wasn't for him to decide.  
  
Ben got in the car and started the engine, following Phasma’s directions to the university district.  He drove as carefully as possible, keeping his acceleration and braking smooth, and avoiding bumps in the road, but for all that Andrzej reacted, he might as well have not bothered.  Andrzej was huddled against the passenger side door, his legs tucked up tight against his seat and his head buried in his knees.  Ben could see his long pale fingers clutching at the fabric of his grey slacks.  He was silent.  
  
They parked in front of Andrzej's apartment building and took the elevator up to the sixth floor.  When the doors slid open, revealing the long grey hallway in front of them, Benek was tempted to just pick Andrzej up in his arms and carry him the rest of the way, but Andrzej wouldn't even look at him.  So instead, Benek just braced one of his shoulders and helped him shuffle forwards, down the hall.  
  
Andrzej was renting a room in a shared apartment.  One of his roommates opened the door for them.  He was young looking, maybe in his early twenties, and it looked like he had rented out the common room as his living space.  Waving them inside, he nodded at Benek and then went back to where he had been stretched out on the couch, reading.  
  
As soon as they made it into Andrzej's room, Andrzej pulled away and went to curl up on his bed, facing the wall.  The room was a little eight by ten square with a bed, a tiny desk, and boxes of what was probably climbing equipment and the rest of Andrzej's belongings stacked all the way to the ceiling.  
  
Ben sighed and rubbed at his face.  "Andrzejek," he sat on the bed, "I'm going to help you with your shoes, okay?"  
  
Getting no response, Benek started to pull at the laces and ease Andrzej's boots off his feet, then peal off his socks.  Andrzej's feet were pale and slender like the rest of him, the nails cleaned and well cared for.  There was a bone spur on the back of his heel from wearing ill-fitting boots and Ben could see were the knit of his socks had made an impression against his skin.  The bones of his ankle were sharp and hard in Ben's hand and Andrzej flexed his toes and shifted against the bed when Ben rubbed at his achilles tendon.  
  
_This fucking guy._  
  
Ben put the foot down.  "You should take your jacket off and get under the covers."  
  
Andrzej didn't respond except to bury his head further into the bedspread, away from Benek.  
  
"Look," Ben felt lost and it made him short-tempered, he was frustrated and angry and scared and didn't know what to do.  "I want to help you, but you have to tell me if this is okay with you, alright?  Otherwise I'm going to wait until Phasma gets here."  
  
At first Ben wasn't sure if Andrzej was going to respond and he prepared himself to go out into the common room to look for a bucket and a towel, leaving Andrzej lying fully clothed on the bed.  Then Andrzej rolled over.  He still wouldn't look at Ben, but he was mostly facing him.  His face was stark white and sweaty.  
  
"Help me sit up."  Andrzej slurred, his lips barely moving as he pawed at the zipper on the front of his jacket.  His hands shook.  
  
Benek helped Andrzej sit up and pull off his jacket, then sweater, then polyester button down.  It felt cold and clinical, like Andrzej was some strange, unknown invalid.  He eased Andrzej's pants over his hips, leaving him in his white cotton undershirt and briefs, then threw the dirty clothes into the hamper by the door and helped him under the blankets.  
  
"I'm going to make you some tea and see if I can find a bucket in case you're sick again.  Where do you keep your towels?"  
  
"Top box by the door."  Andrzej lay on his back with his eyes closed.  The box was filled with Andrzej's clothes at it took a few seconds of rummaging for Ben to find a towel.  
  
"Could you.  Could you get me a new pair of briefs?"  The voice was very small.  Ben looked over at Andrzej.  He looked sad, sad and hurt like Ben had never seen him before, and it made Ben suddenly very afraid, like Andrzej had ripped open all his scabs and scars for Ben to see and was lying in bed, bleeding out and resigned to it.  
  
There was a pile of underwear in the box, wedged between a neat row of rolled socks and a stack of folded sweaters.  He pulled a pair out and handed them to Andrzej.  
  
"Do you need help?"  
  
"No, I can do it."  Andrzej looked so drawn: miserable and sick and afraid.  
  
Ben knelt down next to the bed and pushed Andrzej's hair back.  Some of it had gotten in the way when he had been sick and then dried in clumpy strands.  Ben tried to push them out onto the pillow so Andrzej wouldn't have to feel them against his face.  
  
"I'm going to make some tea, maybe the caffeine will help settle your stomach."  He stroked his fingers over Andrzej's temple.  "Phasma will be here soon, you're going to be okay."  
  
Andrzej closed his eyes and nodded very slightly and Ben leaned forward to kiss his forehead before rising to his feet and going out to the kitchen, closing the door behind him.  
  
===================================================  
  
Phasma showed up about forty-five minutes later.  After pulling Ben in for a brief hug, she went to check on Andrzej.  Ben paced in the kitchen, turning to her as soon as she came back out.  
  
"Is he going to be okay?"  
  
She ran her hands through her hair.  "It's not like having the flu, there is no getting better.  He's an alcoholic, this is just his life."  
  
"No it isn't.  You said this hasn't happened in years.  He never drinks, this isn't normal.  This is...  Something happened, something is wrong."  
  
Phasma rubbed at her temples, "Let's go talk outside, okay?"  
  
Ben nodded, then followed her out the door.  They rode the elevator down to the ground floor in silence and walked to the courtyard in the front of the building.  Phasma pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one and taking a long drag.  Ben watched her without comment.  She smoked about half of it and then stubbed it out, crushing it under her heel as she spoke.  
  
"Dirty habit, smoking.  Don't ever start.  Even after I quit, whenever I'm stressed I want one."  
  
Ben didn't respond.  Phasma had something to say to him.  If she had just wanted a smoke she would have opened a window.  
  
"Andrzej is an alcoholic.  He's pretty open about it, so I assume this is not new information."  
  
Ben nodded.  
  
Phasma fiddled with her pack of cigarettes.  "I don't know when he started drinking.  I met him on the Gasherbrum II expedition.  He was maybe nineteen and already a heavy drinker.    
  
"It never got in the way of his climbing.  He didn't drink at all while we were in Nepal, but we became friends and back in Poland?  He could put away half a bottle of vodka and still recite _Pan Tadeusz_ while walking backwards up a flight of stairs.  Just: steady as a brick wall, a fucking professional drunk, you wouldn't even notice if you weren't paying attention.  
  
"This went on for a couple of years, then, I don't really know exactly what happened, but about six months before he was supposed to climb Makalu, he fell through a sliding glass door and off a third story balcony.  Thank god it was winter.  I guess the snow broke his fall and the cold kept him from bleeding out before somebody got him to a hospital.  
  
"Everybody figured at that point, that was it, no way was he going on that expedition, but, being the stubborn bastard that he is, he somehow got Jędrzej not to cut him and recovered in time and," she waved her hand, "my point is: he stopped drinking and he hasn't relapsed in years.  So, yeah, you're right, this isn't normal for him and it wasn't an accident.  Rationing being what it is, it's not like he just popped around to the corner store for a bottle in a weak moment.  The last time he even came close to this was when they took his travel visa away, but he just ended up on my couch watching my VHS of _Seksmisja_ on repeat and bitching about how 'there wasn't any decent coffee to be found in this fucking country.'"  She shook her head at the memory.  
  
Ben could see it in his mind's eye.  It reminded him so much of that summer they had spent together, climbing in the High Tatras, that it made his chest hurt.  It made him want to run back up the stairs to Andrzej and take him away to the mountains and never come back.  Andrzej would bitch at him about their lack of good coffee and Ben would complain about their lack of a decently sized bathtub and they would take Andrzej's stupid radio antenna up to the top of Mount Kościelec and sit in the rain and...  Ben stopped that line of thinking.  It was pointless and it only made everything hurt worse.  
  
"Anyway, I'm telling you this because I want you to have all the facts.  This is him, it's not a one-time thing, it could happen again. It's going to be a part of him for as long as he is alive.  
  
"He's not someone who lets things go easily, if fucking ever, and two weeks ago a climbing report came out from the Ministry of Tourism in Nepal saying that you had died on the South Face of Lhotse.  It said that your rope failed when you took a fall near the summit and that they were unable to retreive your body.  And I'm not saying..."  
  
She paused and then turned to face Ben full on, looking down at him from her extra five centimeters of height.  "What I'm saying is that he's trying really hard to keep his shit together and make something of himself and deserves a good break and I don't think you mean to do it, but you are fucking with him."  
  
"I'm not--"  
  
"You are."  Phasma interrupted, pulling out another cigarette and putting it in her mouth, then angrily shoving it back into the pack, unsmoked.  "Six years ago, it was kind of cute, but you're a thirty-one-year-old-man Benek, stop acting like a child.  You are neither that stupid nor that oblivious."  
  
She adjusted her hat over her ears.  "Look, he's tough and he has friends.  Whatever you decide, he's going to be okay, but make a fucking decision, that's all I ask, okay?"  
  
Ben wasn't sure what she saw in his face when she looked at him, wasn't sure what she wanted to see in his face.  He looked back, not blinking, not moving, afraid that if he breathed she might interpret an inhale as agreement or an exhale as denial.  
  
She turned away and walked back towards the apartment building, making no indication that he should follow, and letting the door click closed behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: dubious consent (person A gives person B a hand job not realizing that person B is extremely drunk), alcoholism
> 
> "Glass houses" (Szklane Domy) is the first part of the novel _The Coming Spring_ by Stefan Żeromski (1925). Set during the reconstruction of Poland between the first and second world wars, the novel deals a lot with the expectations and dreams the older generation had for the reconstruction of Poland and the disillusionment of what that reality really looked like (all, as you can imagine, based on what happened just before and just after, life in the Republic of Poland was not as idyllic as hoped). The expression “glass houses” has a completely different connotation in Polish than it does in English. Ask a Polish person to explain it, I am no expert.
> 
> All that history at the beginning about Poland in 1989 should be generally accurate but I have never studied it so it is, at best, a simplification of a lot of complex political and economic changes.
> 
> Milk Bars are sort of Polish cafeterias; they served mostly dairy-based and vegetarian meals (because meat is expensive). During the Communist era they became very popular because they were subsidized by the state and very cheap to eat at.
> 
> Zygmunt Klemensiewicz (Zyga) was a Polish physicist and physical chemist (1886-1963). Though he did write one of the first Polish-language books on mountaineering, I basically just stole his name to use for my character because I suck at making up Polish names.
> 
> At the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games, Reinhold Messner and Jerzy Kukuczka were both awarded the Olympic Games Alpinism Prize for climbing all 14 8000ers (technically awarded with the Olympic Order, it’s more of a collar than a traditional medal). The Alpinism Prize had not been awarded since 1936 and has not been awarded since. Messner refused the honor because he did not want alpinism/mountaineering to be regarded in any way as a competition. Jerzy Kukuczka, despite holding similar opinions, accepted the medal because it was an honorary award and not a competitive prize. Interestingly, many articles (mostly non-climbing publications) that describe the event mention Messner's refusal of the award but don't mention Kukuczka at all, I don't really want to speculate as to why.
> 
> Jerzy Drzewiecki (Jurzek) was a Polish airplane engineer, constructor, and pilot (1902-1990). Again, he has nothing to do with this story but is a cool Polish guy and I’m using his name for a character to save myself from having to pretend I understand how Polish names work.
> 
> Yes, I know force is measured in newtons but I didn't feel like spending a ton of time on this little section and the force calculator I found online calculated everything in pounds. In reality, all the factors that go into calculating the amount of force on a piece of gear or on your rope is quite complicated and a good rule of thumb for the inexperienced is: a buttfuck load.
> 
> Jerzy Kukuczka (Benek) died at age 41 near the summit of Lhotse on October 24, 1989. He and Ryszard Pawlowski were making a summit bid on the south face when Kukuczka slipped and their rope broke. From what I understand, they had gotten their primary rope stuck and had been forced to abandon it so were using their backup, which Kukuczka had purchased used in Kathmandu. Pawlowski was unharmed and returned safely to base camp.
> 
>  _Seksmisja_ (1984) is a science fiction action film directed by Juliusz Machulski. Two men participate in a hibernation experiment that is supposed to run for three years but something goes wrong and when they wake up, the nuclear apocalypse has happened and the world is now ruled by women, men in general ceased to exist. The men aren't really heroes though, they are very bumbling and definitely not the smartest. The film is considered politically subversive and I don't totally understand all the levels of what is going on it but it's absolutely worth a watch.


	5. A Minor Apocalypse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: references to alcoholism, implied antisemitism and homophobia
> 
> Check out the work of my lovely beta reader [MargaretKire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire/) ([mothdustmouth](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr) she has put in so much of her time catching my typos and blocking errors and just generally supporting my efforts, I can't thank her enough!

  
  
Benek found himself staring at Rey from across the room.  He had been invited to an Independence Day party hosted by Dopheld and Phasma and should have known, should have anticipated, that Rey would be there.  
  
It was getting late, almost two in the morning, and he was probably the only one left in the house still stone-cold sober.  He had been carrying around the same warm beer since it had first been handed to him over three hours ago and while he had never made the conscious decision not to drink, every time he brought it to his face the smell of it made something in his stomach clench and roll uncomfortably.  
  
Everyone was partying especially hard this year.  November eleventh had been Poland's Day of Independence since the end of World War I, but, for as long as Ben could remember, it had always felt somewhat hollow and perfunctory.  Not this year though.  This year, they, the united workers of Poland, had sloughed off their communist dictators and had voted in free elections for the first time since 1945.  It was the beginning of a new era, a new Poland.  
  
Benek wasn't sure how he felt about it.  He tended to think of it as a good thing, but the reality was, he didn't really know.  He had never lived under any system other than the one he had been born into.  
  
He would need a new carrier.  Mountain climbing didn't pay and the mine was unlikely to stay open.  There had already been massive layoffs.  
  
Additionally, the government was considering declaring amnesty for prisoners sentenced under communism.  Benek's mother was glued to the television every evening in hope that a decision would be made soon.  Her twin brother, Luke, had been imprisoned for unlawful assembly in the late sixties and Benek could only vaguely remember him.  Political prisoners were being released, but it was debatable whether or not Luke qualified.  Whatever the decision was, it would have a huge impact on the family.  
  
He took a shallow sip of beer and watched Rey from across the room, laughing with Jędrzej.  She looked good, her face was tanned and there was color high in her cheeks.  She had pulled her hair up into an elaborate series of knots and braids.  Jędrzej was telling her some story, probably a climbing adventure from his younger years, or maybe they were exchanging notes about K2.  After she had claimed the summit of the Savage Mountain, her next goal was to be the first woman to the top of all fourteen eight thousanders.  
  
She laughed again, loud and bright, clapping Jędrzej on the shoulder and practically falling over in amusement.  
  
Benek decided to approach.  
  
As he came closer, he could hear Jędrzej finishing up his story.  "He was just quick as a wip, could scamper right up a sheer face like he was climbing a ladder, but wouldn't talk, wouldn't talk, wouldn't talk, all day long.  
  
"Finally, it's six o'clock and we're trekking back to the car when I figure it out.  He'd filled his water bottle with vodka and had been taking nips from it all day!  He was about as drunk as a skunk!  So, of course I confront him about it, give him a whole speech about responsibility and his duty to the team and really worked myself into a lather over it and he just stood there listening as I went on and on until finally I asked him if he has anything to say for himself and you know what his response was?"  
  
Rey shook her head.  
  
"Honek says to me, with a completely straight face, 'I'd rather climb half-drunk all day than be fully sober when one of you noobs trips over your own shoelaces and pulls me off the fucking cliff."  
  
Rey broke into renewed peals? of laughter, "No!"  
  
"Hand to God, seventeen-year-old kid."  
  
"That's not funny."  Ben's hand tightened around his glass and they both turned to look at him.  
  
"Oh, come off it, Ben.  Honek knows better than to take himself too seriously.  I was there after his big accident, when he first decided to get sober."  Jędrzej turned back to Rey, delivering the story more to her than to Ben.  "They had just taken the breathing tube out, so I had to get right up by his face to hear him.  He was in bad shape at that point, and I wasn’t sure what he was going to say, if it was going to be a message for his mother, or what.  But no, not Honek, that kid is so unsentimental I’m surprised he even has parents and didn’t just fall, fully formed, out of a granite crack.  
  
“So anyways, what he said was," Jędrzej added a roughness to his voice to imitate hoarseness, "'I was dead drunk and that still sucked, vodka's a waste of money.'"  
  
Jędrzej and Rey burst into fits of laughter again.  
  
Ben's frown deepened and he felt his blood boil.  He thought of how alone Andrzej had looked, how small, when, only a few short weeks ago, Ben had left him in his room with nothing but a bucket and a damp towel.  He thought of Andrzej as a young man, lying in a hospital bed, intubated, realizing he had a disease would probably kill him.  
  
Ben hated how much it scared him.  
  
"Don't you know he's trying to make a better life for himself?  You're his fucking wife!  He needs someone to support him."  
  
Rey's smile dropped and she took a step towards Benek, claiming her space and glaring up at him.  "What the fuck is your problem with me, Benedykt?"  
  
"My problem is that Andrzej almost died and you're fucking laughing at him.  He's your husband, you shouldn't even be here without him."  
  
Rey's face darkened further and she looked about to say something, then decided against it, instead grabbing Ben roughly by the forearm and dragging him off towards the balcony.  
  
"I don't know where you get off."  Rey rounded on him, talking in low, harsh tones and speaking right up into his face.  "Not that it is any of your business, but any legal arrangements Honek and I have do not make his private affairs my responsibility, just as my private affairs are not his.  If you have a problem with that, it doesn’t concern you and you can fuck right off.  
  
"If you have something to say to me, say it to me.  If you have something to say to him, say it to him.  Otherwise, fuck off.  And if you, for even one second, think of bringing God, or the sanctity of marriage into this, you can fuck all the way off to Israel and leave us to our own problems."  
  
She gave him exactly one second to respond, then stormed away, back towards the party, leaving him standing there in shock.  
  
He decided it was probably a good time to leave.  
  
The walk home felt especially long and cold and he couldn't quite stop himself from wondering how much longer it would take for him to walk to Andrzej's apartment building instead of his own.  He wondered if Andrzej was even still there, if Andrzej knew, and if it really mattered anymore at all.  His chest felt tight.  
  
To his knowledge, no one knew about his mother's family, no one alive anyway.  It was just him, his mother, his uncle, who was in prison, maybe his father, who was long gone in the West somewhere, and now Rey, and whoever Rey had told.  What a stupid slip-up.  He had spent a lifetime being careful, working within the constraints of the world in which he lived.  The risks he took had always been risks he had chosen to take.  
  
Somehow, he didn't seem to know what the rules were anymore.  
  
Ben looked up at the sky.  The stars that shone so brilliantly in the mountains were mostly hidden by the lights of the city and the world felt very big and very foreign.  The walls that had constrained the country for almost sixty years were gone.  It should have been freeing, but instead, he just felt incredibly exposed.  
  
==============================  
  
Two weeks later, Benek was boiling water for tea.  His mother was parked in front of the television waiting for the nightly news to come on and the apartment was cold.  They were trying to keep the heating bill down as much as possible to save money in case, in case anything, really.  
  
The phone rang.  
  
"Sobolewski household," Benek answered, grabbing the phone as he wandered over to the cupboard for a couple of glasses.  
  
"Hi, Ben."  
  
"Andrzejek!"  Benek immediately forgot what he had been doing and turned around to lean against the kitchen counter, his full attention focused on the phone in his hand.  He didn't know how to respond, and just clutched at the receiver, pressing it almost painfully to his ear and holding his breath.  
  
"Happy Christmas."  
  
"Happy Christmas."  Benek responded automatically.  
  
Andrzej sounded good.  Well, he sounded tired and tense, maybe a little nervous.  It was hard to tell from only four words, but his voice was light and smooth, not slurred and ravaged by cigarette smoke, like it had been the last time Benek had heard him speak.  He was talking.  He had called him.  Ben could have cried.  
  
"I have the next few weeks free."  
  
Ben nodded and there was an awkward beat of silence before Andrzej continued.  
  
"It's been cold in the Tatras, I heard they have some good ice in Mengusovská Valley and I was thinking of going, getting some climbing in."  
  
Ben nodded again.  
  
Andrzej pressed through the silence.  "I heard you're good on ice.  There's space in the car, if you wanted to come."  
  
"I can only come for the weekend, I have to be back on Monday.  There's this thing, I have some family stuff, I have to be here."  Andrzej had barely finished before the words came rushing out, one on top of the other.  He wanted to go, he wanted to go so badly, but he couldn't let his mom sit there in front of the television by herself when the news came in.  
  
"That's fine, we'll drive back to Katowice on Sunday, probably get in around seven or eight."  
  
"Okay."  Benek's knuckles were white, his stomach flipped and he could feel his pulse in the back of his throat.  
  
"I'll pick you up in front of your place at five on Saturday, hopefully we can make it there by first light, sound good?"  
  
"Yeah, that sounds great."  
  
"See you Saturday."  
  
"See you Saturday."  Benek held the phone to his ear until Andrzej clicked off and then just stood, listening to the dial tone for a few more seconds.  
  
The kettle whistled, startling him out of his thoughts.  He went to turn off the stove.  
  
"Mom!"  Ben hung up the phone and threw everything onto a tray to carry into the living room where his mother sat at the dinner table.  The television had been tilted so she could see it, but the volume was turned way down.  It was still a few minutes before the hour and the news wasn't on yet.  
  
"Yes, Honey?"  
  
"Will you be okay if I go to the mountains this weekend?"  
  
She looked down at the tray he had set in front of her, pausing before she reached out to prepare their tea.  "I will be just fine, Benek.  You needn't worry about me."  She slid his glass over.  
  
"Mom," his mother looked up, "I'll be careful.  I mean it."  
  
He had never made a promise like that before, to anyone.  His climbing and the risks he took had always been an unspoken fact that hung between them.  He never told her how close he had or had not come to death, and she never told him how some nights, when he was gone, she wouldn't sleep, but simply read and reread the mountain report until the sun came up.  Neither of them had talked about the two weeks when he had been reported as deceased.  She hadn't even mentioned it at the time, just hugged him tightly and welcomed him home.  His room had been untouched.  
  
She smiled sadly at him, then reached out to stroke his cheek, "Thank you, Honey," before going back to her tea and turning up the volume on the television.  The news report had started.  
  
=========================================================  
  
As promised, Andrzej arrived outside Ben's apartment building at five in the morning on Saturday in his little white fiat.  Other than a brief greeting as Ben loaded up his gear and climbed into the passenger seat, they didn't talk for almost the entire four hour drive.  
  
Feeling off balance and out of step in a way that wasn't usual for them, they filled the silence by listening to music on Andrzej's portable cassette player.  Ben noticed a definite fondness for pop in Andrzej's music collection and they ended up listening to a lot of Madonna, Aretha Franklin and Toto.  He drew the line at the Bee Gees though, and as the co-pilot and the one in charge of the cassette player, Ben felt perfectly comfortable exercising his full veto powers.  
  
The plan was to drive into Hrebienok, on the Czechoslovak side, then hike up and into the Mengusovská Valley.  The autumn had been a cold one and, according to reports, the three waterfalls formed by Studený potok, as it cascaded down to the valley floor, had already frozen over into three beautiful ice climbing routes.  Benek had brought his tent, it was newer and nicer than anything Andrzej owned, and they would be spending the night in the valley, hopefully each getting a go at leading all three routes.  
  
The path they followed from the trailhead was narrow and only allowed for single-file hiking, which mitigated some of the awkwardness of their uncomfortable silence.  It took another two hours to reach the base of the first waterfall and, when they got there, Andrzej immediately dropped his pack and started flaking out his twin ropes.  
  
"We'll probably camp here, it will only get colder the further into the valley we go.  I'll lead first, you can take lead tomorrow."  He spoke without looking up.  
  
Andrzej was tense, obviously uncomfortable, he had forgone his usual routine of scouting out the area, sequencing the route in a quick, lose pantomime and stretching with audible, almost obnoxious, enjoyment.  Instead, he was all business, his hands were steady and his movements were quick and efficient.  
  
Ben studied him for a moment.  
  
"Okay."  
  
He turned to set up the tent.  
  
Though the rope mechanics and general concept was the same, ice climbing and rock climbing were completely different beasts.  For one thing, ice climbing was intrinsically much more dangerous.  A rock climber could place a nut or a hex in a granite crack and trust it with complete confidence.  A good nut placement in solid rock could hold the weight of a semi-truck; the primary point of failure would be the gear: old webbing, metal fatigue, or maybe a damaged rope, all known quantities, all controllable risks.  In contrast, an ice screw would only ever be as strong as the ice holding it, a condition which could change from minute to minute with the weather and was sometimes hard to properly assess in the first place.  Benek was good at it, he had spent what seemed like his entire life on the ice.  
  
Andrzej was an excellent rock climber, probably a world-class rock climber if Benek knew anything about it, but they had never climbed ice together.  It felt like a terrible time to be trying something new.  He put Andrzej on belay, thinking about the promise he had made to his mother.  Andrzej knew what he was doing, it would be fine.  He trusted Andrzej with his life, maybe with more than his life.  
  
He listened to Andrzej plant the tips of his twin axes into the waterfall ice above him.

 _Thwack Thwack_  
  
They sounded solid, like good placements.  Andrzej had a sharp eye and excellent control of his tools.  He leaned back on them and sunk the front points of his crampons into the ice.  
  
_Thwack Thwack_  
  
Pressing his hips into the wall, he stood up, balancing on the steel spikes of his front points and unhooking his ice tools so he could reposition them a little higher.  
  
_Thwack Thwack_  
  
Andrzej was good.  He wasn't the best, he was clearly more comfortable on rock, though that could have been a reflection of his mood in general rather than a dislike for ice in particular, but he certainly knew what he was doing.  
  
Sometimes inexperienced climbers just let loose on the ice like they were trying to chop a hole in it, swinging their tools over their heads and kicking in haphazardly with their feet.  This type of climbing, if it could be called that, was not just ineffective, it was also dangerous and could weaken the integrity of the entire ice sheet.  A good ice climber made calculated, precise placements, taking advantage of the natural features of the ice and used as little brute force as possible.  Andrzej took to this strategy like a fish to water.  
  
Benek watched as he slowly scaled the wall of ice, one careful placement after the next until, about fifteen feet up, he paused to place an ice screw, screwing it in with one hand, inspected the core, then clipping one of his twin lines to it.  His legs looked especially long in his black snow pants and knee-high gaiters.  He was so beautiful.  
  
If only the little shit would place more gear.  
  
He almost never placed enough gear.  It was stupid, an arbitrary and unnecessary risk, but Ben didn't say anything.  The tension between them was enough as it was.  He just watched the slow trickle of water that ran down the face of the ice from where it was melting in the afternoon sun and steadily fed slack through his belay device.  
  
The day continued in much the same way, with Andrzej leading and Benek following on toprope.  The silence stretched on.  They exchanged and reorganized gear without talking, took a break for lunch, then hiked further into the valley to climb the second and third routes, communicating mostly through gestures and nods.  
  
As it grew, the texture of the silence between them began to change.  It became more comfortable.  The sounds of the forest were muffled under a heavy layer of snow, so there was only the steady rhythm of their tools in the ice or the padding of their feet as they hiked.  The air was sharp and biting and the sun reflected off the ice beneath them in cascading patterns.  There was even a smell to it.  It smelled like wet wool, sunscreen, and cold, cold water.  
  
The last route was the closest one to the valley floor and it was only one pitch, barely thirty feet high.  Andrzej had practically run up it in an attempt to beat the sun before it dipped below the mountains on the far side of the valley.  By the time Benek was pulling himself over the top, the sky had already gone from bright orange to brilliant red.  
  
Andrzej unclipped himself from his belay and started packing away their gear as Benek walked over to him.  
  
"Go ahead and untie, we can walk back from here."  It was the most either of them had spoken since that morning.  
  
It took barely two minutes to reorganize and Ben, in keeping with what had been their routine for the day up to that point, immediately hefted his pack and started out towards the campsite.  Andrzej did not follow.  Instead, he left his gear in a neat pile by the tree that had been their belay anchor, and walked over to the edge of the waterfall, squatting back onto his heels to look out at the sunset.  
  
Covered from finger to toe in overlapping layers, Andrzej tucked his chin into the high collar of his winter jacket, his blue and white knit hat pulled down tight over his ears.  He had taken off his sunglasses in the rapidly dimming light and Benek could see his clear green eyes, framed by their delicate copper lashes.  Long strands of red hair had escaped from under his hat and hung down around his face, the exact color of the sky.  A white, pasty steak was smeared across his face from the zinc oxide he had put on his nose at the beginning of the day.  
  
Ben was reminded of the first time they met, the very first time they had climbed together, almost ten years and only a few kilometers from where they were now.  There had been so many sunrises and sunsets since then and they had stood at the top of so many high places together, that Ben would have been hard pressed to name them all.  But in that moment, looking at Andrzej with the sun setting behind him, his heart ached, because nothing had changed.  He still felt the same as he always had, and it hurt.  
  
Andrzej cocked his head ever so slightly to the side and a strand of hair fell into his face.  Benek pulled off a glove and crouched down next to him, reaching over to gently push the hair back.  He could feel the bite of the cold and the warmth of Andrzej's face against his fingers.  
  
Relaxing into the touch, Andrzej let his eyes slide closed for a moment, then abruptly stiffened and pulled away, burying his face in the collar of his jacket all the way up the nose.  
  
He took a fortifying breath, then pulled himself up straight and opened his eyes to stare out over the darkening sky.  His face was blank.  
  
"You should stop doing that."  
  
Benek's hand hung in the air between them.  He could feel it going numb, the blood in his fingers cooling, retreating towards his core and chilling him from the inside.  
  
"I know that you know, that she told you."  Andrzej pressed his mouth together into a thin line.  His face was drawn, tight and tense.  "That I'm a queer."  
  
Benek stopped breathing, his lungs were frozen.  The world seemed suddenly very loud.  He tried to concentrate over the rush of blood in his ears and the slow pounding of his heart.  
  
"I'm a queer and I like you.  I'm not.  You don't have anything to worry about, with me, but you should stop doing things like that."  Andrzej's eyes continued staring straight ahead, unblinking.  
  
Ben's lungs creaked.  "Things like what?"  
  
Sliding his eyes over to the side, Andrzej glared.  "Like stroking my hair and touching my dick, for instance.  It tends to leave the wrong fucking impression."  He flicked his eyes back to center and continued staring out over the frozen waterfall.  
  
The cold had spread everywhere, down his legs and up to his face.  Benek's lips were numb and his eyes clouded over with ice.  He had only his heart left, beating hot and painful in his chest.  "What if it's not the wrong impression?"  
  
"I don't deal in hypotheticals."  
  
Benek's vision faded in and out and his ears buzzed with static.  "It's not the wrong impression."  
  
"This isn't a joke."  Andrzej's voice was hard.  It was the voice he used when he was much too far above his gear and knew it.  
  
Looking out over the valley below, Benek felt the ice in his lungs recede slightly.  A nervous smile threatened to spread across his face as he curled his bare hand into the sleeve of his jacket, clenching it, trying to warm the fingers.  
  
"I want a gear room so I don't have to always be climbing over piles of wet equipment every time I come back from a trip."  
  
Andrzej shot him a look, confused and angry at the seeming change of subject.  
  
Ben pressed on.  "I want a camus board to strength train on and to go to the Americas and climb in Denali, and Yosemite, and the Andes, but you'll have to help me with the research, because I don't really even know where to start.  
  
"I could go the rest of my life without ever climbing off-width again, but I want to climb in South Tyrol, and Spain, and the Italian Alps and if off-width is involved, I guess that would be okay, but you have to lead it.  
  
"I want to watch you climb and I want to fall asleep next to you at night and see you first thing in the morning when I wake up and I want," Ben closed his eyes and braced himself, "and in between I want you to be with me."  
  
“What the fuck does that mean?”  
  
“It means I want you to fuck me.”  Now they were both pissed off: scared as hell and not liking it.  
  
"What if I'd rather it were other way around?"  
  
"I don't deal in hypotheticals."  
  
"I'd rather you fuck me."  
  
"We can make a rotor."  
  
They sat for a moment in shocked silence, processing the fact that that conversation had, indeed, happened.  Then Benek felt a warm finger brush against his temple.  He opened his eyes.  Andrzej had taken off his gloves and was tracing the contours of Ben’s face with his finger, looking just as terrified as Ben felt.  
  
Covering Andrzej's hand with his own, he twined their fingers together, rubbing his thumb over Andrzej's cold knuckles and holding it to his cheek.  "Would you, does that sound alright to you?"  
  
Andrzej gripped Benek's fingers tightly, then slowly leaned forward to bury his face in Benek's board chest.  The stiffness he had been carrying around with him all day broke down in gradual increments until he was shaking, if only very slightly.  
  
"Yes."  His voice sounded wet.  
  
Benek pulled his other glove off with his teeth and slipped his hand under the brim of Andrzej's wool hat to run his fingers through his soft red hair.  The shaking became more pronounced.  
  
"Are you crying?"  
  
"No."  A muffled sob escaped from where Andrzej was pressed up against the front of his jacket.  
  
Benek pressed a kiss to the top of his head and pulled him more fully into his lap, tucking Andrzej's head under his chin, just like he had always wanted to do, and feeling the scratch of Andrzej's wool hat against his neck.  "I love you."  It felt good to say.  
  
Andrzej held him tighter, choking off another sob.  "You're not helping."  
  
It wasn't particularly comfortable, sitting on ice, in the cold, in crampons and heavy winter jackets, but they stayed there for a while anyways, until Andrzej had calmed down enough to sit up.  He pressed his face briefly into Benek's neck and kissed his cheek, then pulled away, taking his headlamp out of his pocket and switching it on.  
  
Ben, still digging out his own headlamp and trying not to lose his gloves, couldn't see Andrzej's face as he stood, but he could hear the smile in his voice.  "Why stop at a campus board?  It's a brave new world out there, we could start a rock gym."  
  
Ben grimaced as he clicked on his headlamp.  "Customer service."  
  
"True," Andrzej shrugged into his pack and started back towards their camp, "but when I become rich and successful, you're going to have to have a hobby.  I won't have you working in the coal mines all your life."  
  
Ben snorted.  "Yeah, right.  I know you, Andrzejek, you're going to be a dirtbag climber until the day you die.  If you get rich and successful, it will either be because of a minor miracle or a major tragedy."  
  
Andrzej half-turned to look back at him, raising a questioning eyebrow.  
  
Benek just smiled into the glare of his headlamp.  "It's alright, we'll be dirtbag climbers together."  
  
===============================================  
  
It turned into a bitterly cold night.  They ate, rehydrated and crawled into their mummy bags, pulling their hats down over their ears against the cold.  The stars were out, shining brightly in the clear sky overhead as they went to sleep and, when they woke up the next morning, Ben had rolled over into the center of the tent, like he always did.  Andrzej elbowed him in the chest and pushed him back onto his side, like he always did, and they got up, struggling into their boots and jackets and starting water for coffee.  
  
They climbed all morning and ate lunch at the top of the last route, then packed up their ropes and tent and ice tools, and had everything hauled back to the car by midafternoon.  Nothing had really changed at all, except that the sun seemed to shine a bit brighter and the air felt just a little bit more fresh and clear and as Andrzej was closing the back hatch on his little white fiat, but before he climbed into the driver's seat to pop the clutch while Benek gave them a pushstart, Benek leaned over and kissed him.  
  
It was quick and dry, just the briefest pressing together of warm mouths and the brush of a cold nose against his cheek.  Andrzej didn't have any sort of time to react so, when Ben pulled away, he just stood there, speechless, turning bright red all the way down his neck and up to the tips of his ears.  Ben found it so charming that he leaned in to kiss him again.  
  
"Weren't we trying to get out of here?"  
  
Andrzej's flush deepened and he made a quick about-face and walked towards the front of the car, scrambling hurriedly into the driver's seat.  It took him two tries to get the door closed and a full three minutes to get the car started.  He was still red when they finally pulled out of the trailhead parking lot and he remained somewhat flustered for almost the entire car ride back.  
  
The next few days went by quickly.  Luke's release was announced on Monday, and on Tuesday, Ben found himself helping his mother down to their car with her overnight bag and an over-abundance of baked goods he had been up half the night helping her prepare.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?"  It made him feel neglectful, allowing her to go into the city alone, to stand at the gates of Rakowiecka prison, waiting for her brother to come out.  Leia had such a huge presence, sometimes he forgot what a small person she was, until he hugged her and realized she barely came up to his shoulder.  
  
"Oh, Honey, there won't even be any room for you in the car.  I'm picking up Malina and Lezek on the way, you know their brother is being released as well."  She reached up to pat his cheek.  "I'll be back on Thursday, don't worry."  
  
Benek waved his mother off, then climbed back up the stairs to their apartment.  He didn't even think about it, just walked straight into the kitchen and picked up the phone.  
  
=============================================  
  
It was not entirely uncommon for Benek to have guests over to the apartment for tea or a meal or just to talk, but there had never been anything particularly romantic and it had never been Andrzej.  So when the doorbell rang in the early afternoon of the next day, Ben felt thoroughly unprepared.  
  
Stiff and probably overly formal, he opened the door and offered to take Andrzej's jacket, hanging it in the coat closet and handing him one of the many pairs of houseshoes they kept for visitors.  
  
Andrzej had clearly taken care with his appearance.  He had taken off his hat and jacket in the hallway before knocking and brushed out his hair so it hung soft and loose around his face.  It made him look younger and more demure than Ben was used to.  His trousers were slate grey and neatly pressed and he wore a dark green wool sweater that brought out his eyes.  His face was clean and freshly shaven.  He looked like he was going on a date.  
  
He was going on a date.  This was a date.  
  
Benek panicked, retreating into the kitchen where there was something for him to do besides fidget and pluck nervously at his sleeves.  "Do you want tea?  I'm going to make tea."  
  
Andrzej followed without comment and Benek continued to talk nervously as he filled the kettle and set it to boil, then started pulling down glasses and shuffling boxes of tea around in the cupboard.  
  
"My uncle's being released from prison today so my mother drove up to Warsaw to be there when he gets out.  They're going to spend the night with friends and drive back tomorrow morning."  
  
Andrzej hummed and leaned back against the counter, watching Ben fumble with the tea, which only served to make him more nervous.  
  
"Not that I just invited you because she's gone out.  Of course I want you to meet her.  It's just, everything is so crazy right now.  Luke has been gone for over twenty years, and now he's coming back, and I don't know if he's coming to live with us or what, or..."  
  
Andrzej pushed away from the counter and reached out to put a hand on Ben's shoulder, but just then the kettle went off and Ben dashed away to pour the hot water.  
  
"Obviously, this is a really strange time for you too, you'll be able to travel now and the markets are opening up and everything is going to be different..."  
  
"Ben."  Andrzej cut through Benek's rambling, making him look up.  
  
Andrzej's hair hung light, like copper feathers, around his face.  His face was clean and white, with just the ghost of a windburn that spread across his cheeks and made the skin around his eyes look especially soft and pale where they had been shielded by his sunglasses.  He folded his arms across his chest and took a wide stance.  His posture was plumb line straight.  
  
"If you've changed your mind, it's okay.  You don't have to explain it to me, you can just say that, that you've changed our mind."  His face was blank and expressionless, but his eyes were hard.  
  
Ben felt all the oxygen leave his lungs and in two quick steps was across the room with Andrzej's face cradled in his hands.  He brushed his thumbs across Andrzej's windburned cheeks and felt the soft skin around his eyes.  His hands were big, sometimes they felt too big; he could hold Andrzej's entire face in them, from his temples to his chin.  
  
"I haven't changed my mind."  
  
Andrzej looked at him, then slipped his hands tentatively around Ben's waist, running them up his sides and, when Ben didn't pull away, around to his back, pulling him in closer.  He raised an eyebrow.  "Then, can I assume that that was just you freaking out for a moment?"  
  
Ben pushed one hand back into Andrzej's beautiful hair, letting the other drift down to feel the line of his jaw, the gentle curve of his neck.  "That was just me freaking out for a moment."  
  
"Are you quite finished?"  
  
"Yeah."  Ben brought their faces together and kissed him, allowing his mouth to linger, licking and biting at Andrzej's soft, pink lips until Andrzej opened his mouth and melted against him, pressing his whole body into Benek's.  Ben's hands wandered across his back, feeling the hard line of his shoulders and narrow hips, then reaching under his sweater and pulling his shirt out of his trousers to run his hands up the smooth, warm skin of Andrzej's back.  
  
Andrzej arched into his hands like a cat, opening his mouth for Ben's tongue and rubbing up against him so that Ben could feel him hardening against his thigh.  
  
Ben's hands traced across Andrzej's stomach to the fastenings at the front of his pants, running his fingers over the fly and hearing Andrzej gasp in response, his hips jerking forward on reflex.  
  
But before Ben could take it any further, Andrzej pulled away, panting.  His mouth was wet and swollen and his face flushed.  His hair was a disheveled mess and the collar of his sweater had been pulled roughly to one side, revealing a sliver of milk-white shoulder.  It disappeared again beneath layers of cotton and dark green knit as Andrzej adjusted his clothes and smoothed back his hair.  
  
He wiped his mouth and gave Ben a significant look.  "Are you going to serve me tea now or show me your bedroom?  Because we are not doing this in your mother's kitchen."  
  
"Really?"  Ben glanced towards the stove to make sure it was off and started ushering Andrzej towards his bedroom.  "That's where you draw the line?  Not sodomy, but the kitchen."  
  
"It's no one else's business what I do with my own ass, but I'm not so rude as to disrespect your mother's kitchen."  
  
As soon as the door closed behind them, Ben started tugging Andrzej out of his clothes, laughing as Andrzej's hands got caught in the sleeves of his button-down when they both forgot to undo the cuffs.  
  
"Maybe I'll just keep you like this."  Ben kissed his way down Andrzej’s pale white neck and nipping along the collarbone as Andrzej struggled to free his hands.  
  
"Much good it'll do you with your pants still on."  
  
Laughing, Ben stepped back and stripped out of his clothes in record time.  He let them drop carelessly into a pile on the floor, then threw himself onto his bed, tucking his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles in mock nonchalance.  "Just waiting on you, Sunshine."  
  
Andrzej rolled his eyes dramatically, then took his time freeing himself of his shirt, folding his clothes carefully and draping them over the back of a chair.  He retrieved something from the pocket of his trousers and threw it onto the bed by Ben's hip before crawling up after, primly uncrossing Benek's legs and kneeling between them.  
  
Ben's skin felt hot and tight.  They had been naked together before, Andrzej's body was no great mystery to him, but this was something entirely different.  He had been hard since their kiss in the kitchen and could feel the blood pulse between his legs as calloused hands ran up them, massaging the sensitive skin of his inner thighs.  
  
Andrzej bent to kiss his iliac crest and nuzzle the dark curls below.  Ben was sweating and panting, spreading his legs to encourage Andrzej's fingers further and further up, towards where he was leaking all over himself.  Andrzej pulled back just far enough to breath, hot and wet, over the tip of his cock.  It jerked and bobbed, almost coming into contact with Andrzej's mouth and Ben felt his own mouth fall oven in sympathy.  Reaching the juncture of Benek's hips, Andrzej's hands followed his thigh crease, pressing in gently with his thumbs and just barely not touching everything that was aching to be touched.  
  
Ben sat up and pulled Andrzej forward into a kiss, licking into his mouth, wet and messy, as he tried to calm himself down, only to immediately lose control again when Andrzej reached down and rubbed his thumb over the head of his cock.  Ben moaned and thrust into Andrzej's hand, smearing precome everywhere as Andrzej sat back, breaking the kiss.  
  
There was a sharp click of a bottle being opened and then Andrzej was raising up on his knees, arching his back and reaching behind himself with one hand, but before Ben could think too hard about what that meant, Andrzej had bent over again and taken Ben into his mouth.  It was hot and wet and Andrzej's free hand, pushing Ben's hips back against the mattress and holding him steady, was the only thing keeping Ben from thrusting shamelessly into his mouth.  
  
He looked so beautiful, with his bright red hair spilling over his shoulders and into his face, and his pale white back arched behind him, his hips thrusting against his fingers even as he rocked forward, taking Ben deeper and deeper into his throat.  Ben was afraid to move, afraid to touch.  He tentatively traced Andrzej's milky white shoulders with his fingertips, wondering if they would still feel as soft and smooth when they were freckled and tanned in the summer, if Andrzej would get a farmer's tan or just climb shirtless, and if he did, if Ben would get to see it.  He wanted to.  He wanted to so badly.  
  
Ben pushed back the lose curtain of red hair and saw Andrzej's face, his pale copper eyelashes lowered in concentration, his pink lips stretched and swollen as Ben's cock disappeared into his mouth.  It was almost too much.  
  
"Oh, wooh, stop, stop!"  
  
Andrzej stopped and pulled back, sitting up.  His new posture bowed his chest forward, showing off miles of smooth white skin and hard, pink nipples.  Ben could see Andrzej's hand still working in languid thrusts behind him, his hips hitching backwards in counterpoint as he raised a questioning eyebrow.  
  
Breathing out deeply through his mouth, Ben looked up at the ceiling, trying to get himself back under control.  He felt the mattress shift as Andrzej repositioned himself, lifting Ben's hands to rest them on Andrzej's knees, which were now bracketing Ben's hips.  There was a crinkling sound and he breathed in steadily through his nose as a condom was rolled down over his erection and something wet and slick smeared over it, then suddenly Andrzej's face was bent over his, filling his field of vision.  
  
"Hey," his green eyes were soft and clear, "is this what you want?  We can stop."  
  
Ben ran his hands up Andrzej's strong, lean thighs to his hips, then up to circle his waist and back down.  "Yeah, I want this."  He laughed weakly.  "I just don't want to come before we even get started."  
  
Andrzej smiled, leaning down to kiss the side of his nose and nuzzle his cheek before sitting up again.  "Don't worry about that.  I'll go easy on you this time."  
  
Then he arched back and slowly lowered himself down, impaling himself inch by inch until he was seated, flush against Ben's hips.  
  
The heat and pressure of it was intense and Ben clutched at Andrzej's thighs until his fingers turned white, breathing in harshly through his nose and trying to calm himself down.  He knew he should look away, but he couldn't stand to miss a second of Andrzej, spread out on top of him, strong and beautiful, every muscle tensed and stretched, his head thrown back and his long neck exposed.  Then he started moving, lifting himself up on his strong, pale thighs and slamming himself back down against Ben's hips.  
  
Ben didn't even try to keep rhythm, just shuddered and gasped while Andrzej rode him.  He let his hands drift back to feel the roundness of Andrzej's ass, pulling the cheeks apart and thrusting up sharply to burry himself just that much deeper.  His fingers wandered, dipping down between the cheeks until, suddenly, he could feel himself, where he was pushing into Andrzej, pumping in and out, deeper and deeper.  He looked up into Andrzej's face and knew that he could feel it too, that he was touching them.  
  
That was enough to send him over the edge.  His hips stuttered and he gripped Andrzej tightly, grinding him down against his hips and pressing up, desperate to empty himself as deeply inside Andrzej as he could get, pulsing into him, as if he could mark him forever, before collapsing limp and boneless against the bed.  
  
He groaned weakly as he felt Andrzej pull up and off, carefully removing the condom.  He heard the snap of the latex being knotted and the disgusting wet slap of it hitting the floor.  Prying his eyes open again, he reached up weakly to massage Andrzej's hips where he had probably pressed bruises into them.  Andrzej's erection stood, flushed and pink against his belly and Ben lazily ran a finger up it from base to tip.  It jumped approvingly before Andrzej batted his hand away.  
  
"I have plans for that."  
  
"Oh?" Ben asked, sated to the point of smugness.  He returned his hands to their exploration of Andrzej's hips.  "Am I allowed to be involved?"  
  
"If you're amenable."  Andrzej reopened the bottle of lube and poured a generous amount into his palm.  
  
"I'm amenable."  
  
"Hmm..." Andrzej gave Ben an assessing, predatory look, recapping the bottle and throwing it to the side, then reaching up to smear the slick across Ben's chest.  He kneaded his pecks and rolled the hard nipples between his fingers.  
  
Ben raised both eyebrows.  "Are you planning what I think you're planning?"  
  
"I don't know, I'm not a mind reader.  What do you think I'm planning?"  Andrzej shuffled forward on his knees to straddle Ben's ribs.  
  
"I think you might be planning on fucking my chest."  
  
Andrzej hummed again and pressed Ben's pecks together, rubbing his hard dick against them.  "You might be right.  How about you make yourself useful and help me out."  His eyes flicked up to meet Benek's.  "Unless this is a problem for you."  
  
"Nope, definitely not a problem."  Ben brought his hands up to replace Andrzej's, squeezing his own chest together and sucking in a quick breath up as Andrzej brushed against a nipple.  
  
He wet his lips as Andrzej started to thrust against him.  "Are you quite sure you're queer, though?  I hear this works better with women."  
  
Flushed and panting, Andrzej stared down at him with hooded eyes.  "I'm quite sure."  He snapped his hips forward sharply, reaching out to grip the headboard in front of him.  "This.  Is a totally.  Different.  Thing."  It was messy and intimate, Andrzej kneeling over him and rutting into his chest, Ben pressing himself together to accommodate him, still flushed and buzzing from his own climax.  
  
Groaning out Benek's name, Andrzej came, spilling all over Ben’s chest and neck, getting come on the underside of his chin and into his dark hair.  He slid down to kiss Ben's face, and then rolled off to collapse on his back next to him.  
  
Ben dabbed at the mess on his chest.  
  
"Don't I at least get a rag or something?"  
  
Andrzej snorted and rolled his eyes, then leaned over the side of the bed to fish Ben's own undershirt off the floor and wiped him up with it before throwing it back in the general direction of the dirty clothes bin.  
  
Ben made a face and rubbed at a tacky patch over his sternum, Andrzej's clean up job had not been particularly thoroughly.  
  
This only made Andrzej laugh and roll on top of him again to kiss down his neck and bury his face in his dark hair.  He pulled back and smiled widely.  His eyes were bright and happy and the gold cross he always wore around his neck had tangled with his hair, swinging forward to rest, gleaming, against Benek's chest.  "I kinda like you all messy and smelling like me."  
  
Ben leaned up to kiss him, then collapsed back onto the pillow.  His eyes caught on the shine of Andrzej's gold necklace and he picked it up, carefully untangling it from Andrzej's hair and holding it up to study.  
  
Andrzej watched him inspect the cross.  "It doesn't mean anything to me.  I'll convert, if that's something you want."  
  
The words cut through Ben's thoughts and he looked up.  Andrzej was still smiling, but his green eyes were serious.  "Rey told me, that you're Jewish.  Though,” he glanced down Benek’s body suggestively, “I guess if I didn't know before, I'd have a good idea by now."  
  
Ben could feel the cold dread creep back in.  Andrzej had brought his hands up to the small gold clasp on the chain, but his fingers were slick and they kept slipping off.  "She won't tell anyone else.  I know she can be harsh but she's not intentionally mean-spirited."  Their eyes met again as Andrzej looked up and Ben felt the cold melt away, as if warmed by the sun.  "Help me with this, will you?"  
  
Ben reached up and undid the clasp and Andrzej slipped the chain and the cross off from around his neck and put it on the bedside table.  "I'm not religious, I don't think God is going to save us or punish us or any of that.  But I care about you and I can't promise I'll believe in any of it, but I'll convert if you want me to."  He leaned down to press a kiss to Ben's cheek and another to the side of his nose.  
  
Ben wrapped his arms around Andrzej's back and pulled him close.  "It's okay, we've never been practicing.  I don't think I even know all the holidays."  He ran one hand down the line of Andrzej's spine, feeling out the strong muscles in his back.  
  
Andrzej smiled into his shoulder.  "I can't say that's not a bit of a relief, I wasn't looking forward to having the tip of my dick cut off, to be honest."  
  
Ben knocked their heads together lightly, "You're a dick,"  then sighed into his hair, too relaxed to properly feign offence.  "You should live here."  
  
Andrzej rolled off Ben and onto his back.  Ben let his hands follow, his right one coming to rest on Andrzej's abdomen.  He frowned as he felt the hardness of the muscle there, the sharpness of Andrzej's hip bones.  The skin was soft, but under it there was only bone and muscle.  
  
"It's a little further from the university, but you wouldn't have to worry so much about money and I could see you more."  
  
"I'm not moving in with you and your mother, Benek."  
  
"Why not?  Mom won’t mind, she'll love you."  
  
Andrzej sighed and reached up to push his hair out of his face.  His hand was still slick and somewhat sticky and he grimaced when he realized he had just gotten it in his hair.  "Isn't your uncle moving in?"  
  
Sensing that it might be a bit early to push the topic, and knowing that Andrzej had at least somewhat had a point, Ben let it go.  "Will you come for Christmas at least?  I want you to meet my mother."  
  
Andrzej dropped his hand down to where Benek's was resting on his stomach and laced their fingers together.  "Maybe I can meet her sometime that's a little less high-pressure?"  
  
"This weekend?  You could come for dinner."  
  
"Okay, but," Andrzej paused and bit his lip, looking away towards the wall just past Benek's ear, "maybe you could wait until after, to tell her about us?"  His grip tightened on Ben's hand.  "I know she's important to you and it would be nice to meet her, just once, without, without all of that."  
  
His eyes flicked back over to meet Ben's and Ben drew him in, holding him tight against his chest and kissing his temple.  "She'll be fine with it, I know she will, but okay.  I'll wait to tell her."  He paused.  "But afterwards, you'll come to Christmas?"  
  
"One thing at a time, okay?"  
  
"Alright, one thing at a time."  
  
=============================================  
  
Luke would not be living with them, thank god.  
  
He was sleeping on the couch for now, but would be leaving for Sweden at the beginning of the week.  There was a job lined up for him there in an old friend's import-export business, whatever that meant, and based on the uncomfortable glances being thrown in his direction every time the subject came up, Ben was reasonably certain that the old friend in question was his father.  
  
He hadn't seen Han since the seventies, the summer of 1976 to be exact.  Ben had just graduated school and was starting to work full-time in the mine when Han went on a business trip to the West and simply never came back.  At this point, Ben wasn't sure how he felt about the prospect of seeing his father again, though there was something comforting in the knowledge that the old man was still alive.  Having the option of tracking him down, even if just to spit in his face and demand back child support for his mom, was bizarrely reassuring.  
  
It was Saturday evening and they were just finishing up dinner.  Ben's mother had ducked into the kitchen to put the kettle on and Luke seemed content to gaze out the window in silence with a smile on his face that was either knowing or vacant, depending on how one chose to interpret it.  
  
Ben glanced across the table at Andrzej.  He looked good.  He always looked good, but he had put effort into making himself presentable, just like he had for their date a few days before.  His hair was neatly brushed and pulled back, away from his face.  The collar of his shirt was ironed and starched and his cuffs were buttoned neatly at his wrists.  Ben felt a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he remembered how easily this proper and put together Andrzej had come unraveled.  _Thirty seconds, a minute tops._  
  
Andrzej kicked him under the table and glared; it had zero effect on Benek's mood.  
  
He rose to his feet and started gathering up the empty plates from the table, calling out into the kitchen, "Mom, do you need any help?"  
  
"Yes Honey," her voice carried in from the other room, "why don't you and Luke take the trash out?  I'm sure your friend Andrzej can help me clear the dishes while you're gone."  
  
"Umm..."  Ben looked nervously between Andrzej and the open door to the kitchen.  The dumpsters were all the way down in the back courtyard on the ground floor, it would take a good fifteen minutes to walk there and back.  The trash did not need to go out right this second and there was certainly no reason for Luke to come.  This was clearly a ploy.  Or maybe not.  No, he knew his mother, this was definitely a ploy.  
  
Andrzej gave him a wry smile and took the stack of plates out of his hands.  "Don't just stand there Ben, the trash isn't going to take itself out."  
  
"Okay.  Yeah.  We'll be right back."  
  
Ben grabbed the trash bin his mother had waiting for him in the kitchen and ushered his uncle into his jacket and shoes and out the door as quickly as possible.  
  
He started power-walking down the hallway towards the stairwell, his uncle trailing at a more reasonable pace.  
  
"Ben, I'm fairly certain your mother is not going to eat your guest."  
  
Luke had been, for the most part, quiet and reflective since his arrival only two days before.  
  
Ben's memories of his uncle were somewhat sparse, but fond.  He remembered a fresh-faced young man who used to swing him up on his shoulders and play soccer with him in the park.  Luke had always been very excited about something or other in those days and the apartment had been more lively with him around.  Ben couldn't even really remember the details surrounding Luke's arrest, he hadn't been the kind of kid who paid a lot of attention.  Luke was just gone one day and had never come back.  
  
Twenty years was a long time to have been in prison and that Luke had found peace through meditation and quiet reflection was probably more than even the most optimistic person could have hoped for, but Ben was in a hurry and at the moment it was damn inconvenient.  
  
He held himself back from sprinting down the stairs, instead slowing his pace to match his uncle's, who seemed completely unbothered by Ben's obvious agitation.  
  
They made it down two flights before Ben gave up.  
  
"Hey, Uncle Luke, I'm gonna just run down and dump this.  You can start heading back, I'll catch up."  
  
As he dashed down the stairs, he could hear Luke calling after him, "Patience is a virtue!"  
  
"Thanks!"  
  
Ben was already halfway out the door and sprinting around the back of the building.  He dumped the trash and ran inside again, taking the stairs two at a time and catching Luke just as he was making it back to their floor.  
  
In what he considered a monumental display of self-control, he forced himself to walk sedately the rest of the way back to the apartment.  
  
Luke shot him an amused smile as they took off their jackets and shoes.  Ben opted to ignore it.  
  
"We're back!" he called, stepping into his slippers and walking towards the kitchen to replace the empty trash bin and wash his hands.  
  
"Well that was quick."  His mother was setting out the tea and Andrzej was seated back at the table with his back to the door.  Everything seemed fairly normal and it wasn't until Ben had finished washing his hands and come back into the living room, catching a glance at Andrzej's face, that he knew something was wrong.  
  
Andrzej was sitting rigidly straight, his hands folded in front of him and his mouth pressed into a thin line.  His eyes were red and wet.  He wasn't crying, but it was a close thing.  
  
"Mom!  What the fuck?  What happened?"  Ben jumped forward, wanting to reassure, but not sure how.  
  
"I only did what you should have already done, ages ago."  Leia gave him a chastising look.  
  
"What?"  That was not in the least bit reassuring.  
  
"She offered to give me knitting lessons."  Andrzej's voice was steady, but he wasn't looking anyone in the eye.  
  
"What?" Ben repeated.  
  
Leia was unimpressed.  "Well, despite my best efforts, you're certainly not any good at it and when I'm gone, you're going to need someone to keep you in sweaters.  I'm just glad you found someone who already knows how to cook so I don't dispare of you starving to death when you finally decide to move out."  
  
Ben's mouth went dry.  He looked at Andrzej.  "I didn't say anything, I swear it, I didn't."  
  
Leia sighed.  "Benek, I'm your mother.  I've been your mother your whole life and really, I think you underestimate how much you talk about this boy.  To be quite frank, I've been waiting for a redhead to show up for dinner for about five years now."  
  
Ben could only stare at her in a mixture of shock and horror.  
  
Leia turned, collecting Luke from where he had been hovering by the door and herding him into the kitchen in front of her.  "Luke, you can help me prepare the tea tray."  She closed the door with a discrete click behind them.  
  
The tea was quite clearly already laid out on the table.  
  
Again, Ben chose not to care.  As soon as they were alone, he pulled a chair over to sit next to Andrzej, reaching out to cup his cheek.  "I'm sorry."  
  
Andrzej leaned into the hand ever so slightly and Ben rubbed his thumb over Andrzej's high cheekbones, then sat back in surprise as Andrzej abruptly stood up and plopped himself back down squarely in Ben's lap, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and burying his face in his neck.  
  
"She told me I should move in."  
  
"You don't have to, but I'd like that."  
  
Ben ran his hand down Andrzej's back and up into his hair, trying not to mus it.  He knew Andrzej would hate that, he had put so much effort into making a good first impression.  
  
"Alright."  Andrzej's voice sounded slightly choked and Ben could feel the front of his shirt begining to get just a little bit damp.  
  
"Alright?"  
  
"I'll come to Christmas and," he paused for a beat, "I'll think about the other thing."  
  
Ben smiled and ran his hand over Andrzej's hair.  He felt light and warm.  
  
Andrzej grumbled, shaking his head into Benek's shoulder.  "I don't think I've ever cried this much in my entire life."  
  
Ben just kissed his ear, enjoying the weight and warmth of Andrzej on his lap and in his arms.  "I love you."  
  
"You are the worst."  Andrzej pushed his face further into Benek's neck and held on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A Minor Apocalypse_ by Tadeusz Konwicki (1979) is about a man who has been asked to set himself on fire in front of the Communist Party headquarters in Warsaw as an act of protest. He agrees to do it, but is not sure if he will actually follow through and spends the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets, mulling over his decision.
> 
> So, I was getting a little exhausted with all the research involved in this fic and did not put a ton of effort into looking up the minutia of what happened directly after the fall of communism in 1989 and how it affected people's lives in those first few months. It was a very complicated time and the transition happened very quickly but... I don't quite know what this meant on a day-to-day level. In East Germany it was astoundingly fast, like: overnight you could suddenly get western goods. But that was a totally different situation so... same rules apply: be highly suspect of the historical accuracy of anything in this story.
> 
> IDK if this is an unclear point or not, but any kind of protection in ice (thing you attach your rope to to potentially catch your fall, like an ice screw) is always highly suspect. This does not, however, mean you can't rappel off of it. The forces involved in a rappel are much lower than the forces involved in a dynamic fall. Imagine someone handing you a brick versus trying to catch a brick that someone tosses off a third story building to you.
> 
> There was a lot of controversy surrounding prisoners that had been sentenced by the communist government. Most political prisoners were released almost immediately (so Luke being released in December would have been a bit late) and there were discussions of amnesty being granted to anyone imprisoned under the communist government but that ended up not happening and it lead to massive prison riots and is still (to my knowledge) somewhat of a controversial decision. Just know that... this whole bit about Luke being in prison for over twenty years >_>... I am super vague about it because I did not do nearly enough research and most of the details I include are probably totally inaccurate.
> 
> Leia is super accepting in a way that is probably unrealistic for the time/place but I kinda hope, in my heart of hearts, that people like that have always existed, even if only in small numbers, everywhere on the planet and Ben is just 300% lucky to have one of them for a mom. Also, Leia is an ACTUAL DISNEY PRINCESS, like, for real, so she gets to be the best mom ever.
> 
> Ben's family celebrating Christmas: modern Poland is something like 99% Catholic so holidays like Christmas are just as much culturally significant as they are religiously. I'm sure if you are a family that actively practices another religion, your approach to this issue differs, but I'm going with Ben's family being basically your average Polish family that celebrates the same holidays everyone else does and, at this point, feels very disconnected from their Jewish ancestry for a number of reasons (for more on these reasons, just pick up any history book about WWII ever written).


	6. The Two Who Stole the Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Ueli Steck. Ueli Steck died right before I started writing this. He was known as the "Swiss Machine" and was one of, if not the greatest mountaineer to have ever lived. He died on April 30, 2017 in a climbing accident on Nuptse (a smaller peak near Everest). Just type his name into YouTube and you'll find amazing videos of him speed climbing the Eiger etc.
> 
> I have the best beta reader in the whole world!!! Go check out [MargaretKire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire/) ([mothdustmouth](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr) she is the greatest :)))))

  
  
Andrzej unlocked the front door and dropped his pack in the hallway, leaning down to unlace his boots and put on his houseshoes.  His boots slipped in perfectly to rest next to Ben's and he felt his heart in his throat as he looked at them, sitting next to each other on the shelf.  
  
It was coming on nine months since he had moved in and the transition had gone, all things considered, rather well.  Ben's room was not very big, but their climbing gear had slotted in perfectly together, neatly organized into bins and racks, and Ben, contrary to what Andrzej had been expecting based on his tent-hogging habits, always seemed to make room for him.  For instance, he liked to press his back to the wall, leaving the whole mattress in front of him open, like he had been reserving a space on it for Andrzej all along.  Andrzej had spent too many years sleeping alone to feel totally comfortable with someone crowding him at night, but there was something deeply comforting about waking up to Benek curled around him like one half of a parenthesis, not touching, but close enough to share warmth.  Even that had taken a while to get used to, though, and Andrzej had spent quite a few of those first mornings lying in bed, just watching Benek sleep next to him and feeling stupidly grateful.  
  
Now, when Benek wasn't there, the bed felt empty.  It had taken exactly five nights of sleeping alone after Ben had left on an expedition to Kanchenjunga, before Andrzej headed out on his own climbing trip to the Tatras.  Sleeping in a bivy sack never felt lonely or sad and a clear, alpine sky always made life’s little tragedies feel much smaller and more insignificant.  
  
It was early February now and the house was cool, not cold, but chilly enough that Andrzej kept his sweater on, even as he took off his jacket.  He could hear Benek in their bedroom on the campusboard.  Andrzej had made it years ago, bringing it with him when he moved in and mounting it over their bed.  The concept was relatively simple.  It was a wooden board, about one and a half meters tall, by one meter wide with thin slats nailed to it at regular intervals.  The whole thing hung forward off the wall at about 45 degrees and was designed to build finger and upper-body strength.  Andrzej had been teaching Benek to do exercises on it.  Ben was plenty strong, but doing pullups off of a two-centimeter-wide wooden slat took a very specific kind of finger-strength and dead-point precision that he had never trained before.  
  
Andrzej walked down the hall to their bedroom.  The door was open.  Ben was indeed on the campusboard and Andrzej leaned against the wall to watch.  Despite the chill in the room, Benek had stripped down to just a tank top and faded khaki slacks.  He must have been at it for awhile already, because his tank top was dark with sweat and clinging to him.  Andrzej watched Benek's muscles shift and flex under the fabric.  He was pulling himself up in strong, dynamic movements, jumping both hands from slat to slat, all the way up the board.  His wide shoulders strained with effort and the tension radiated all the way down his back and sides as he kept his core tight.  
  
Ben's dark hair was getting long, it clung to the back of his neck, tucked out of his face behind his ears and almost touching his shoulders.  Andrzej wanted nothing more than to feel its new length in his hands, to bury his face in it, and then brush it aside and kiss those strong shoulders, that neck.  
  
Every time Benek made a jump, he grunted with the effort and the wood creaked under his fingers as he caught himself.  The tendons stood out on his big hands, they were dusted with chalk and it was getting all over the bed.  Benek almost never remembered to put down the dropcloth and normally Andrzej would have found that irritating, but today he just smiled and smiled.  His cheeks were already sore from it and he felt sort of drunk.  Ben was home, in their bedroom, over their bed.  
  
But looking could only be so satisfying.  Andrzej pushed away from the wall, coming to stand behind Ben, ghosting his hands down Ben's sides and letting them follow him as he dropped down, one by one, to the bottom slat, then started doing pull ups.  
  
"You're getting good at that."  
  
Ben didn't reply, just continued his exercises, though Andrzej could see his fingers beginning to slip.  He was getting tired.  That was fine, it meant he would be finished with his workout soon.  Until then, Andrzej would wait.  He felt Ben’s muscles flex under his fingers, the hardness of Ben's sides, the width of him.  He had missed him so much.  Finally, Ben lowered himself to the ground.  
  
He didn't turn around.  
  
Andrzej draped himself over Benek's back, pressing his face to his dark, sweaty hair and kissing his neck, running his hands across Ben's chest and reassuring himself with the familiar feel of him.  
  
"Welcome home, Big Guy."  
  
Ben’s hands stayed at his sides.  His voice was cold.  "I got home three days ago."  
  
Still nuzzling Benek’s neck, Andrzej hummed contentedly.  "You changed your flight?"  
  
"You weren't here."  
  
"I went climbing."  
  
Ben stepped back, out of the circle of Andrzej's arms.  His face was dark and accusing as he turned around.  "For three weeks?"  
  
Andrzej just looked at him, blinking sluggishly.  His brain was slow to switch gears and he was starting to feel like he was missing something vital.  "I had the time off?"  He made it sound like a question.  
  
"No one knew where you were."  
  
"I told your mother I was going climbing and when to expect me back."  
  
"You can't do that anymore."  
  
Andrzej was taken aback.  "What the fuck, Ben?"  
  
"It's irresponsible."  
  
"Irresponsible?  Is this a joke?"  Andrzej's good mood had evaporated.  He was angry, also hurt and confused, but that didn't really matter at the moment because the only feeling he was willing to admit to was anger.  "You are a fucking Himalayan climber!  You went climbing!  What did you expect me to do, sit here and wait by the phone until you come back?  Do you know what the death rate is on K2?  One in four, Benek, one in fucking four!"  
  
"I wasn't on K2."  
  
"Yes, thank god you were only soloing a new route on Kanchenjunga in fucking winter.  Your mom may be living in willful ignorance, but I've seen that fucking mountain, Benek.  Yeah, it's been a while, but I remember what it fucking looks like."  
  
Ben crossed his arms defensively.  "You knew who I was since the moment we first met."  
  
"Yeah, and I was worried about you then too.  I have exactly two coping strategies and this is the other one."  
  
"Oh, great.  Go ahead, put your fucking sobriety on my shoulders too, why don't you."  
  
"I'M FUCKING NOT!"  Andrzej practically screamed into Ben's face.  His shoulders were so tense they had inched all the way up to his ears and his hands were shaking at his sides.  He couldn't figure out how this had happened, what had gone so wrong in the last five minutes.  
  
This was all Ben's fault, Ben with his stupid face, his disgusting, muddy-brown eyes and hideous, hawk-like nose and ugly, weak chin.  Just looking at it made Andrzej want to throw up.  Either that or cry.  His chest ached.  
  
"I knew what I was signing up for and you fucking did too.  I take responsibility for my own behavior but you can't expect me to just sit around.  When I'm worried, when I feel myself getting..." he floundered, they didn't talk about his disease much.  Admitting to being an alcoholic and actually talking about it were two entirely different things.  "Unbalanced," he finished, lamely.  
  
Ben covered his face with his hands and exhaled  through his fingers, then pushed the sweaty hair out of his face.  "I don't like..."  He started, then stopped, yelled out incoherently in frustration and turned around.  "I don't want to do this anymore."  
  
Andrzej felt his throat close up.  
  
He watched Ben's back, heard him sniff as he rubbed at his nose and ran his hands through his hair, bunching it up in his fists and pulling at it.  
  
They were the only ones home and it felt suddenly very, very quite.  
  
Then Benek continued.  "I was on the decent and my crampon failed.  Not all the way, the heel strap broke lose and I caught myself on my ice axe and it was fine.  It wasn't even a big deal, barely a close call, and I've had a million close calls.  But all I could think of was how I might not," his voice wavered and broke, "how I might not make it home and I have never been so scared in my life.  I changed my ticket to come back as soon as possible, and then, when I got here, you weren't even home."  He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, still not turning around.  His breathing was shaky and loud.  
  
Andrzej felt wrung-out, confused and uncertain, so he went back to the one thing he knew: Benek was alive, home and safe.  He brought his hands up to Benek's shoulders and carefully turned him around, kissing Benek's hands where they covered his face.  When he pulled the hands away, the eyes underneath were red and puffy and Benek was biting at his lip as if he wasn't sure what it would do if he let it out from between his teeth.  Andrzej leaned forward and kissed Ben's cheeks, the point of his sharp chin, his crooked nose, and the spot between his dark eyebrows where he might be getting the beginnings of a frown-line.  
  
Benek's face was pink and blotchy and his hair was slicked back and run through with sweat, making his ridiculous ears seem that much bigger and stick out that much more prominently.  Andrzej didn't care, he kissed Benek's ears and ran his hands through his hair, pressing his nose to Benek's temple and breathing him in.  
  
"I'm not going to try to change you, Ben.  But you can't try to change me, either.  Otherwise, this won't work.  You know that, right?"  
  
"I know."  Ben hid his face in Andrzej's shoulder, holding onto him so tightly Andrzej could almost feel his ribs creek.  "I'm done with the 8000ers.  I've done everything I'd set out to do and I don't need them anymore."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"I want to be able to talk with you about things.  If you think something is too much of a risk, I want us to talk about it.  And if, if things get bad for you, I want to talk about that too.  I don't want it to just be something you deal with on your own.  Even if there's nothing I can do."  
  
Andrzej continued to stroke Ben's hair and kiss his temple.  Everything felt very fragile.  
  
"Alright.  I'm not...  I'm not very good at that.  But, I'll try."  
  
"I've just," Ben lifted his head and straightened up from where he had been resting it against Andrzej's shoulder.  He buried his nose into Andrzej’s long red hair and ran his hands up and down Andrzej's back, then gripped him tightly again.  "I've never had so much to lose before."  
  
"I love you."  
  
Andrzej had never directly said it before and it made Ben pull back to look at him.  Andrzej returned his gaze, tracing the beauty marks that spotted his cheeks and chin and over his right eyebrow with a pale, callused finger.  "I love you so much."  
  
Something in Ben snapped.  He pressed forward, pulling Andrzej against him and kissing him, then grabbed at the hem of Andrzej's sweater and stripped him out of it.  Andrzej's button-down and thermal undershirt followed and Benek practically threw him onto the bed, attacking the fastenings of his pants and ripping them off him, before flipping him onto his stomach and climbing on the bed after him.  
  
It should have felt brutal, even violent.  Ben was so much bigger than him.  When he crouched over Andrzej, Andrzej's shoulders fit perfectly against his broad chest, bracketed by his arms, like a cage.  But instead, it was affirming in a way Andrzej hadn't known he craved.  He felt hot all over and was already leaking against the sheets when Ben pulled him up onto his knees, biting into a spot on his side just over his ribs as he shoved two fingers inside him.  Ben must have taken the time at some point to fish the lube out of their bedside drawer because his fingers were warm and wet, but the burn still hurt, just like the bite.  It had been a month since Ben had been home and Andrzej was tight.  He hadn't even wanted to touch himself with his own fingers while Ben was gone.  
  
Ben didn't spend a lot of time stretching him.  He fucked him with his fingers until he deemed Andrzej lose enough, then pulled out, smearing more lube on his dick and breathing heavily against Andrzej's shoulder as he lined himself up, holding Andrzej tight against his chest.  
  
He reached between Andrzej's legs to stroke him, panting into his ear.  "Is this okay?  Can I...?  Is this...?  Tell me if this is okay."  
  
Andrzej choked back a whine, thrusting into Ben's hand and pushing back at the steady weight against his ass.  He grasped Benek's hand, where it was braced against the bed, lacing their fingers together.  Ben's hands were strong, big and smeared with chalk and slick and leaving white greasy handprints on everything they touched.  Andrzej wanted it to be him, for Benek to touch him everywhere and for it to show.  
  
"Yes!  Yes.  Please, Ben.  Yes."  
  
Ben pushed forward, sinking into him.  He bit Andrzej's shoulder, then licked at the welt, pumping into him and pulling at Andrzej's cock.  Andrzej was swallowed up by the width of Ben's frame and his hair fell around his face like a curtain, blocking his view so that all he could see was their hands, twined together, braced against the bedspread as he felt Benek moving inside him, above him, all around him.  
  
Neither of them lasted long.  Andrzej came first, emptying onto the bed and into Ben's fist.  He cried out as Benek continued to drive into him, fucking him into the mattress until he was shaky and overstimulated, before coming with a loud, almost angry, groan and collapsing on top of him, his mouth full of red hair.  
  
After a minute, Ben rolled them both onto their sides, clutching Andrzej's hips tight to his own so that they stayed connected.  Andrzej could feel the come trickle, hot and thick, down his legs, but Ben only pulled him closer, flipping the bedspread up to cover them, even as they still lay half on-top of it.  His hands traced Andrzej's face, carefully stroking his hair back and out of the way over the pillow and his voice was a soft murmur against the nape of Andrzej's neck.  
  
"Can we stay like this?  Just for a minute."  
  
Andrzej reached back to run a soothing hand down Ben's thigh, where it was pressed up against his own.  "Yeah, just don't fall asleep or we'll be stuck together in the morning."  
  
"Okay."  
  
============================================  
  
Naturally, Ben fell asleep.  
  
Ben fell asleep and Andrzej didn't have the energy to haul himself all the way to the bathroom to clean up.  But he did manage to maneuver Ben off the bedspread and under the covers, wiping himself up with his discarded undershirt before falling asleep, so that he woke up the next morning feeling sore and slightly crusty, but also happy and warm.  
  
He kissed Ben lightly on the nose and on the dark beauty mark in the corner of his eye, making Ben scrunch up his face in protest.  Andrzej smiled at him, running his hand up Benek's arm under the covers, then down the slope of his shoulder and up his neck to cup his face.  
  
Benek squinted at him, his eyes barely open and his voice still rough with sleep.  "Why do they call you that, anyway?"  
  
"Hmm?"  Andrzej ran his fingers through Ben's dark, sleep-tousled hair, smiling to himself and tracing the edge of one of Ben’s ridiculous ears.  
  
"Honek.  Why do they call you Honek?"  
  
"What made you think of that?"  Andrzej would have raised an eyebrow at getting that question first thing in the morning, but he felt too contented to bother.  He drew a line across Ben's face with the tip of his index finger, connecting the dark spots on Benek's cheek with the ones across his nose and over his right eye.  "It's from my middle name, Honorat, because there are so many Andrzejs out there.  People have always called me Honek, ever since grade school."  
  
"Why not me, though?  When we met, you told me to call you Andrzej."  
  
"I liked you.  I thought you were cute and I liked how you said my name."  He traced the line of Ben's nose.  It was crooked, just past the bridge.  It was a good nose.  "I like it when you call me Andrzejek."  
  
He shuffled closer, tilting his head up to kiss the side of Benek’s nose and the corner of his soft, soft mouth, then tucked his head up, under Benek's chin and against his chest.  He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Ben's heartbeat as Ben lazily ran his fingers through his hair.  
  
"Have you ever thought about braiding it?"  
  
"Hmm?"  Ben was awfully inquisitive this morning.  Andrzej snuggled closer.  "What?  Like pigtails?"  
  
"No," Ben huffed indignantly, lifting a strand to examine in the morning light.  It was darker now that it was winter, less burnished copper and more autumn maple.  "Just... braids.  Like a viking."  
  
"A viking, huh?  I can do that."  Andrzej smiled, bringing his hand up from where it had been resting against Benek's ribs to drift across his chest, rolling the nipple under his thumb until it hardened and nipping at the soft skin.  It was salty with dried sweat from the night before.  
  
Ben was starting to wake up.  He smiled and stretched, then rolled them over so Andrzej was straddling his lap.  Andrzej winced under his breath and lifted up onto his knees.  He was sore and the various fluids that had dried on him were pulling and chafing at the skin between his legs.  But Benek looked so beautiful beneath him, sleep mussed and smiling, haired fanned out on the pillow like an inkblot.  Andrzej leaned down to nuzzle his chest, brushing a line of kisses up his sternum to his throat, then across his adam's apple and over his chin, biting at Benek's pouty bottom lip.  He pulled back.  Benek smiled up at him hopefully, smoothing his hands up Andrzej's thighs and Andrzej could feel him hardening beneath him.  
  
"You like that?"  He shifted slightly, smiling wickedly down at Benek and raising an eyebrow.  "What else do you like... Sugar?"  
  
Ben groaned in disgust and exasperation, letting his head fall back against the pillow and half-heartedly trying to roll over and dislodge Andrzej from his hips.  "You are the worst."  
  
Andrzej had learned early on that Benek intensely disliked any pet names that compared him to food, small animals, or pre-pubescent humans and he used this knowledge regularly for his own amusement.  "Oh, come on, Honey Lamb, don't be like that."  
  
Ben covered his face with his arms and turned away.  "Nope, you've killed it.  I'm never getting another erection again."  
  
Andrzej laughed, bending down to pull Ben's arms away from his face and kiss him.  "Don't be ashamed of what you like, Baby, Daddy'll take care of you."  
  
"Alright, that's it," Ben sat up, mock serious, "you have gone too far."  He tried to grab Andrzej by the waist and flip him over, but Andrzej had already twisted away, laughing and hoping out of bed to struggle into his pajamas and slippers.  
  
Ben flopped back in defeat and rolled over to face the wall.  "Very funny, very funny, but if I develop performance problems, just know that it will be traceable back to this moment."  
  
Andrzej pulled his dressing gown on over his pajamas, still giggling to himself, then leaned over the bed to run his fingers through Ben's hair and kiss the back of his neck.  "If that happens, we'll work through it together.  But in the meantime, I'm gonna go take a shower before your mom gets home."  
  
Relenting, Ben turned just enough to offer him a quick kiss, before snuggling back into his pillow.  Andrzej stole one more, then grabbed his toiletries and a fresh towel and stepped into the hallway, closing the bedroom door softly behind him.  
  
 He flicked the hot water heater on in the bathroom and leisurely started brushing his teeth and stripping back out of his clothes as he waited for the water to heat up.  With Leia out of town visiting her brother and not scheduled to be back until the early afternoon, it was probably silly of him to insist on getting fully dressed for a quick trip down the hallway to the bathroom, but Andrzej was entirely uncomfortable with even the remote possibility of encountering Ben's mother with anything less than two layers of clothing separating her from her son's dried come in his pubic hair.  He was plenty willing to sacrifice the extra thirty seconds it took him to dress and undress again for the luxury of peace of mind.  
  
The hot water heater clicked off, indicating that it was ready, and he jumped into the shower, allowing the bathroom to fill with steam while he soaped up and scrubbed himself clean.  Then, turning the water off and stepping out, he toweled his hair dry and combed the tangles out of it.  On a whim, he braided it away from his face as he waited for the steam to clear off the mirror so he could shave.  He scowled at his reflection, he had accidently cut his sideburns a little shorter than usual and the braids looked stupid.  Maybe he could ask Rey for advice on how to do them properly, she seemed to know about things like that.  
  
His hair had already partially dried in the braids, so taking them out made his hair look wavy and semi-permed.  He threw his comb back into his shaving kit in disgust and shoved the whole thing under the sink.  The waves would relax in a few hours, it didn't matter.  He pulled his pajamas and robe back on, hung his towel up to dry and exited the bathroom.  
  
"What the hell?"  A gruff voice drew Andrzej up short.  
  
He thought he had heard Leia come in while he was in the shower, a little earlier than expected and entirely justifying his irrational need to wear both pajamas and bathrobe to take the six steps down the hall between his and Ben's bedroom and the bathroom, but he had not realized she had brought company with her.  
  
A strange man with a wrinkled, weather-beaten face and steel-grey hair stared at him from his seat at the kitchen table.  There was a scar running lengthwise across his chin and an incredulous look on his face, as if the entire world were put there just to test his patience.  
  
"You're not Ben."  
  
There was no way this was not Benek's father.  
  
Andrzej eyed him slowly, it might have been the scar, but he definitely had a certain rakishness about his appearance.  "No, I'm not."  
  
_Well, he's not hideous.  Between him and Leia, I'd say I have a lot to look forward to as Ben gets older.  So there's that, at least._  
  
Speaking of Leia, she poked her head around the corner, looking down the hallway to see him.  "Oh, Honek, dear, I'm so glad you're up.  Won't you join us?  This is my husband, Han."  
  
Just then Andrzej and Benek's bedroom door flew open, slamming against the wall and bouncing back, only to be caught by Ben, who stood in the open doorway in his bathrobe, his hair tangled and half sticking up on one side.  
  
For a second Andrzej thought he was going to start yelling, but instead he just narrowed his eyes and swept past into the kitchen.    
  
"Yes, Andrzejek, let's have breakfast."  Andrzej wasn't sure he had ever seen someone stride quite so assertively in slippers before.  
  
Andrzej felt a bit uncomfortable sitting across the breakfast table from Ben, with Han on his left and the seat at the head of the table free as Leia bustled around the kitchen.  He stirred his coffee.  Andrzej drank his coffee black, so there was nothing in it to stir, but he stirred it anyways.  He could feel Han staring at him and felt suddenly very self-conscious of his long hair, which was especially fluffy that morning because of the aborted attempt at braids, and his mortifying pastel-pink dressing gown.  He had gotten it years ago as a hand-me-down from Phasma and never felt the need to get a new one, a decision he was just now coming to regret.  Even his sideburns were especially inadequate today.  He glared down at his coffee and tried to project the aura of not being a twelve-year-old girl.  
  
Han was still looking at him incredulously as Leia sat down, laying out a plate of sliced cucumbers, ham and cheese, as well as butter, jam and a basket of freshly toasted rolls.  Andrzej waited for Leia to start, then took a roll, avoiding Han's eyes and concentrating on spreading his butter and jam as evenly as humanly possible until he knew where, exactly, he fit in in this little family reunion.  
  
He startled for a moment as he felt something brush against his ankle under the table, then settled when he looked up and realized it was Benek.  Ben trapped one of Andrzej's ankles between his slippered feet. He was looking over at Han with thinly veiled resentment and hostility, his mouth turned down into a thin line.  Andrzej watched Benek fumble with his utensils, angrily buttering his roll and expending a lot of energy not eating, and he realized he had nothing to prove.  Han could love him or hate him and it wouldn't matter unless Ben said it did.  Han was the intruder here.  Ben was the one feeling ambushed and off-balance.  
  
Andrzej spooned a bit of jam onto his plate, the tension in the room was palpable and only getting worse the longer they sat there in silence.  He turned to face Han.  
  
"So, Leia introduced you as her husband," he started innocently, tilting his eyebrows up in what he hoped was an inquisitive fashion and waiting for Ben to take a sip of coffee.  "Would that make you Ben's Daddy then?"  
  
Ben coughed and sputtered all over the table, kicking at Andrzej's trapped ankle and laughing.  Andrzej struggled to keep his face straight, only cracking a smile after Leia hit him upside the head.  
  
She rolled her eyes at him.  "Whatever that was about, I don't want to know."  
  
==========================================  
  
As it turned out, Han had, indeed, been the old friend with the import-export business that had given Luke a job after his release.  He had been in loose communication with Leia for years, in the sense that Ben and Leia's telephone number and address had not changed and Han would, occasionally, think about communicating.  Times were changing now that the borders were open and Luke was a daily reminder of the family he had left behind.  So Han had decided to come visit Katowice under the loose guise of a business trip and Leia had deigned allow him to sleep on the couch.  Ben pretended it all had nothing to do with him and had been avoiding the house as much as possible.  
  
Leia was at work and Ben and Han had both left on separate errands, or as Andrzej liked to think of them, excuses to avoid each other, so Andrzej had the apartment to himself.  He was vaguely hoping that Ben would get back soon so they could take advantage of some very rare alone time and had even played around with his hair in front of the mirror until he found a way of braiding it back that he didn't entirely hate.  It still hung loose down his back, but the braiding pulled it away from his face and out of his eyes in a way that he hesitated to admit was actually rather practical and, dare he say, somewhat fetching.  He was starting to feel silly, though, waiting around with his hair done for Benek to come home, so he threw down the dropcloth, chalked up his hands, and started working off his frustrations on the campusboard instead.  
  
Andrzej wasn't big and obviously powerful like Ben, but being strong in a compact way had it's advantages.  With years more practice and generally less weight to have to hang off his fingers, Andrzej could absolutely fly up the campusboard.  He ran through a quick warm up, then started pulling up in earnest.  
  
Big dynamic moves were the most fun.  He could jump his hands past two sets of slats, sometimes three, pulling himself up so explosively that he moved from the bottom to the top of the campusboard in two quick jumps on arm-strength alone.  It tended to be a loud exercise though, the board would slam against the wall and then creak as it caught his bodyweight.  So, when he heard the door open and someone come home, he finished his set and switched to more traditional pull ups, stopping to strip out of his shirt and tie his hair up, off the back of his neck.  
  
The iron cross was a very Benek-friendly type of exercise.  Andrzej set his hands on the bottom slat of the campusboard so his elbows formed right angles, well beyond shoulder-width apart, and pulled up, holding himself suspended with his shoulders level with his hands.  He hated it, it worked all the major muscles groups in his shoulders, back, arms, and all the way down his chest and it never got any easier.  There was no technique to perfect, it was just hard.  He grunted his way through a set of five and then shook his hands out.  
  
Whoever had come home was being a passive-aggressive pill about it.  Andrzej knew he tended to make annoyingly loud non-verbal noises when he was working out, but he generally tried to be conscientious and was really almost finished.  
  
He pulled himself up, groaning into it as he felt all the muscles down his back start to cramp.  
  
_Hold it, hold it, one more second._  
  
He let himself down with a sigh, then pulled up again.  His arms froze mid-way and he powered through it with a loud curse, continuing to clench is jaw and making incoherent noises during the three second hold.  
  
_One more._  
  
He let out another loud groan as he struggled to pull himself up.  Then, suddenly, the door that he had left ajar to allow air to circulate, flung wide open as Han burst in.  
  
"Alright, that's it!  Have some respect, the least you could do was close the damn..."  
  
Han stopped mid-sentence as Andrzej dropped to the ground and turned to look at him in surprise.  They both started at each other for a moment.  
  
"Um... where's Ben?"  Han asked awkwardly, his voice back to normal speaking levels.  
  
"He left to pick up something to make for dinner."  Andrzej turned to grab his towel, wiping the sweat off the back of his neck and pulling his shirt back on.    
  
"Oh."  Han started to back out of the room, casting around for an exit strategy.  "I was going to crack open a beer, if you want one."  
  
Andrzej considered politely refusing and letting Han off the hook.  He slipped his houseshoes back on.  "I'll join you, but I think there should be some coffee left over from this morning, no need to waste the beer on me."  
  
"One of those health nuts, huh?"  Han led the way into the kitchen, grabbing a beer from the fridge as Andrzej poured himself a cup of cold coffee.  
  
Andrzej snorted, "No, just sober."  
  
"There's something untrustworthy about a man who doesn't drink."  
  
"Really?"  Andrzej turned a lazy, amused smile on Han.  "And here I thought it was going to be the fact that your son likes to fuck me in the ass that was going to be the sticking point with you."  
  
Han sputtered into his beer but Andrzej just continued, smiling serenely.  "To be fair, it does probably sound something like that but, just a little tip:  I would recommend against bursting in on your son in the middle of his workout and accusing him of depraved sex acts.  I don't think he'd take it well."  
  
He paused, taking a sip of cold coffee while Han tried to figure out how to respond.  "I avoid drinking because I don't like who I am when I drink."  
  
The subject now safely changed from his son's sex life, Han gave Andrzej a distrustful look.  Andrzej could feel him sizing him up, carefully eyeing the line of his shoulders, where they were covered by his bulky sweater.  "You get violent?"  
  
Well, it was nice to know he wasn't entirely unimpressive without his shirt on, and that Han's heart was at least in generally the right place.  "No, I get drunk."  
  
Han huffed out a laugh, relaxing back into his seat for the first time since they sat down and taking a drink of his beer.  "Yeah, I can relate to that."  
  
Talking to Benek's father wasn't terrible.  He was a bit of an asshole and more than a little rough-around the edges, but Andrzej was fairly used to that from Jędrzej and Zyga and half the curmudgeonly old climbers he had ever met in his life.  
  
Han was working on his second beer and laughing at some off-color joke he had just made when Andrzej interjected, without preface, "You haven't lost him, you know."  
  
Han shot him a puzzled look.  
  
"Your son, you talk about Ben like he's lost to you, but he hasn't gone anywhere.  He's pissed off and he doesn't trust you, but you haven't lost him."  
  
Scratching at the back of his head, Han shrugged uncomfortably and sighed.  "You know, I was the first one to take him into the mountains when he was little."  
  
"Yeah, he told me."  
  
That earned Andrzej another one of Han's trademark, incredulous looks.  
  
He shrugged in return.  "You're his father, it's not like you never come up."  
  
Han seemed to be considering an answer to that when the front door swung open.  "Honey, I'm home!"  
  
Andrzej could hear Benek fumble about, kicking off his shoes and hanging his jacket, before appearing in the kitchen doorway.  He dropped his bags off on the counter and came over to kiss Andrzej on the cheek.  
  
Andrzej returned it with a smile.  "Don't call me Honey, Sugar."  
  
"Don't call me Sugar, Dollface."  
  
Rolling his eyes and putting down his coffee, Andrzej hauled himself out of his seat and walked over to the counter.  "Well, let's see how you did."  He opened the first bag and began inspecting its contents.  "Carrots, potatoes, white flour, I gotta say: so far I am underwhelmed."  
  
Han made no comment during all of this, just continued to sit quietly, sipping his beer.  
  
"Oh, come on, that's just the shit we needed for the house, I'm not that terrible."  It was Leia's birthday and, though she claimed to not want any kind of special celebration, Andrzej had promised to cook, provided Benek could come up with something worthwhile for him to work with.  
  
"Mushrooms, Parmesan, okay, that's a bit more like it, olive oil, I love how you just assume I can cook with this stuff, and,"  Andrzej turned to give Ben a disparaging look, "dried pasta?  Really?  Who are you feeding tonight, the woman who gave birth to you or a coworker you mildly dislike but don't actively want to have starve to death on your watch?"  
  
"But, I mean, she likes pasta.  You don't want to make pasta?"  
  
"Ugh."  Andrzej handed over the box of dried spaghetti, holding it at arm's length like it pained him just to look at.   "Go put this in the pantry in case the Russians invade again and we get desperate.  How does your mother feel about ravioli?"  
  
"I didn't buy ravioli."  
  
"No, but we can make ravioli."  
  
"From scratch?"  
  
"It's not exactly String Theory."  
  
"String what?"  
  
"Go wash your hands."  
  
About two hours later, Han had long since wandered out into the living room to watch the news.  The pasta dough had been worked and rested, the filling sauteed and cooled, and a stracciatelli soup and pleasant winter salad were both finished and waiting to be served.  Ben's primary job, up till now, had been to stir things and not burn himself or cut off any of his fingers and, at that, he had been extraordinarily successful.  But it was time to roll out the pasta dough and start forming ravioli and, even with Andrzej's careful instruction, he was finding that to be a touch more complicated.  
  
"See, now you fold it over and press down around the little bits of, Ben what are you doing?"  
  
"Pressing down?"  Ben looked up to see Andrzej giving him an exasperated look.  "Not good?"  
  
Andrzej eyed Ben's uneven and slightly squished mass of pasta dough and sauteed mushrooms.  "Well, on the upside, no one is going to have any doubts that you helped."  
  
"Andrzejek, I don't want it to be crap.  Please, you know I'm shit at this."  
  
Andrzej rolled his eyes, but leaned in to kiss Benek's ear anyway as he came up behind him, wrapping his arms around Benek's sides and tucking his chin over Benek's shoulder so he could guide his hands.  "See, like this."  He straightened the pasta sheet and pressed the air out from around the little mounds of filling.  "Now, ideally we would have a pastry cutter, but we don't, so we're going to improvise.  Here."  He showed Ben how to cut around the individual ravioli with a  knife, patterning the edges as he went, then handed the knife to Ben.  
  
Ben wasn't uncoordinated, he just didn't particularly care about cooking, which was fine.  Andrzej leaned his head against Benek's shoulder, letting his hands rest quietly on the counter as he watched Ben work.  Andrzej didn't particularly care for scrubbing bathtubs, so as long as Ben always took care of that, he could cook exactly once a year on his mother's birthday and that would be okay with Andrzej.  He was a big fan of division of labor.  
  
"I've been thinking."  Andrzej mused.  
  
"I've noticed that's a habit of yours."  
  
"How do you feel about Peru?”  
  
“I hear they have mountains there.”  
  
“I was talking to Jędrzej the other day and he showed me some photographs from a trip he took a few years ago.”  
  
Ben hummed, but otherwise didn’t comment.  
  
“6,768 meters high, two distinct summits, one with a beautiful, unclimbed northwest face.”  
  
Ben nodded along, smiling to himself.  
  
“Solid granite, in the center of a major national park, and, the summit is the place of lowest gravity on the planet.”  
  
“What?”  Ben paused to look at Andrzej out of the corner of his eye.  
  
“According to my research, it's the furthest point on the surface of the Earth from Earth’s center.  Ergo: the spot on Earth with the lowest gravity.”  
  
“It's not the tallest mountain in the world, I've climbed that one.”  
  
“No, Huascarán isn't even the tallest mountain in South America.”  
  
“But its summit is the furthest from the center of the Earth.”  
  
“I don't mean to blow your mind or anything, Benek, but the Earth isn't round.”  
  
Ben turned more fully around in Andrzej’s arms, careful to avoid getting flour on his clean cloths.  "Too late for that, you always blow my mind."  Andrzej groaned at the terrible line, but Ben kissed him anyway, biting at his lower lip and bringing his arms up around Andrzej's shoulder, trying to pull him in without touching him with his hands.  He pulled back to press his face into Andrzej’s hair, feeling the texture of the braids against his face.  “You are a cruel, cruel man.”  
  
“Do tell.”  
  
“Coming up behind me like that, looking like you do and smelling like you do, with your hair like that.  Please, please, tell me you’ll do your hair like this again.”  
  
Andrzej blushed bright red, he had forgotten about the hair.  “You like it?”  
  
“Yes,” Ben nipped at his neck, “Oh, and you taste good too.”  He muffled a groan into the shoulder of Andrzej’s sweater, then let him go again.  
  
Andrzej turned back to his own pasta board, still blushing up to the tips of his ears.  He cleared his throat.  “So, you’ll think about Peru?”  
  
“Is there really anything to think about?  We're going.  Or do you want to try to get an expedition together?”  
  
Andrzej hummed over his ravioli consideringly.  “I’ll think about it.”  
  
Forty-five minutes later, Leia came home to the sight of all three of them, Andrzej, Ben and Han, frantically peeling and coring apples for Szarlotka, an apple cake that Ben had mentioned was Leia’s favorite and Andrzej had completely forgotten he was going to make until about fifteen minutes before she walked in the door.  
  
“I can’t believe you forgot the cake,” Ben groused.  
  
“I’m not perfect, you know, and it’s not like you reminded me either.”  
  
Han cut in, gesticulating with his knife as he talked.  “Ben, take it from an expert, it’s best not to goad the person who knows where you sleep.”  
  
“Thank you Han, I couldn’t have said it better myself.”  
  
Andrzej glanced up and saw Leia smiling in the doorway.  Ben and Han hadn't noticed her come in yet and she gestured at him to keep quite, then winked and walked back into the other room.  
  
========================================  
  
They didn’t make it to South America that summer.  Between Andrzej’s schooling, Benek’s job and everything that was going on in the family, they decided that taking a year off from the big mountains wouldn’t be such a bad thing.  Instead, they hung around the High Tatras all summer, mostly bouldering.    
  
Bouldering routes were short, ten meters high at most, but incredibly challenging and often dynamic and upper-body dominant, which was exactly the kind of climbing Benek liked the most.  There were also no ropes involved, only a cotton pad and a spotter at the bottom of the route to keep a climber from hitting their head if they fell.  Unsurprisingly, it quickly became Benek's new second-favorite thing to do in the woods.  
  
In late July, they met up with Phasma and Dopheld for a four-day weekend and on the afternoon of the third day, found themselves sprawled out in the sun, enjoying the weather and picking at the last of their lunch.  Phasma and Dolph were bickering good-naturedly back and forth about Dolph’s tendency to be over-protective.  
  
“Oh, get over it Dopheld, I’m not made of spun sugar, women have been giving birth since the beginning of time.”  
  
“Yes, and women have been miscarrying and dying in childbirth since the beginning of time too.  One of us has to be terrified.  I think it’s a rule and since you aren’t, I’m just picking up the slack."  Ben snorted as Andrzej made a face from behind Dopheld's back and Dolph turned to glare at him.  "Ben, I swear to god, you better not be rolling your eyes at me.”  
  
Ben held up his hands.  “I'm with you on this one, childbirth sounds terrifying.”  
  
Phasma made a noise of disgust and moved to change the subject.  “So, guess what I got in the mail the other day?"  
  
Dopheld sat up eagerly.  "Oh, yes, I almost forgot, Rey's getting married!  To a Canadian!  Have either of you met this guy?"  
  
Andrzej waved his hand.  “Eh, a few times.”  
  
“And?”  He prodded.  
  
Andrzej shrugged.  “I couldn’t really say.  Apparently he climbs, but we just sat around and talked so who knows how well?  I assume he's not terrible, after all Rey puts up with him.  He seemed polite enough, chewed with his mouth closed, smelled like he’d showered recently, the whole bit.”  
  
Phasma threw her shoe at him.  “So what you're saying is: you couldn’t understand a word he said.”  
  
Andrzej dodged, collapsing back against the rock and closing his eyes in defeat.  “I couldn’t understand a word he said.”  
  
“I never thought Rey would get married,” Phasma commented.  
  
Andrzej cracked open one eye to squint over at her from under his lashes.  "Then you will be shocked to hear that this isn't even her first," he deadpanned.  
  
She rolled her eyes, “You know what I mean.  She's getting for-real, in the eyes of God and our peers, married.  And then she’s moving with him back to, where was it again?  Vancouver?  It all seems a bit fast.”  
  
Andrzej shrugged.  
  
“Didn't the divorce just go through a few weeks ago?”  
  
Andrzej shrugged again.  
  
Phasma looked over at Dopheld, making a face like she was contemplating the wisdom of her own choices.  But then he smiled at her and her expression softened.  
  
She sighed.  "I guess when you know, you know.  Meanwhile, these hormones are driving me crazy and my fingers hurt.  I vote we spend the rest of the day by the lake.”  
  
Dolph’s face immediately lit up.  “Yes, excellent idea, let’s do that.”  He had practically given himself an aneurysm every time Phasma climbed anything, and had been pushing for them to go to the lake since the very beginning of the trip.  
  
Andrzej resettled himself against the rocks, closing his eyes again and relaxing in the warm sun.  “I want to go a few more rounds with that last route before I call it a day, you go on ahead.”  
  
Ignoring Dopheld's attempts to carry everything for her, Phasma stood, gathering her gear and heading back toward the trail.  “Benek, you staying too?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Okay, we’ll see you back at camp later.”  
  
Andrzej waved vaguely in their direction and listened to them walk away.  Then the light behind his eyelids dimmed as a shadow fell over his face.  He smiled.  
  
“You wore the braids today.”  
  
His smile widened as he felt Ben settle on top of him.  
  
“They keep my hair out of my face.”  
  
"So they're not for me?"  Ben leaned down to kiss him.  It was a long, drowsy kiss.  Ben tasted like apricots.  
  
"They might be a little bit for you."  Andrzej cracked oven his eyes as Ben pulled back, only to see Ben quietly laughing to himself as he looked down at him.  “What?”  
  
“Did you really not understand Rey’s fiance?”  
  
Andrzej sniffed and turned his head away indignantly.  “I’m not accustomed to the Canadian accent.”  
  
“That man spoke so slowly he might as well have been spelling the words out.”  
  
“If you think making fun of me will get you out of going to the wedding you are vastly mistaken.”  Andrzej squinted up into Benek’s face.  “Rey has done a great deal for me over the years and you are coming to her wedding.  You don’t have to say nice things, but you will be polite.”  
  
Ben made a face.  “Fine, but I'll be expecting the same behavior in return.”  
  
Andrzej raised an eyebrow.  
  
“I assume you will be insisting that she come to our wedding.”  
  
“Our wedding?"  Andrzej gave him an incredulous look.  "The one that is both legally impossible and we have never talked about?  That one?”  
  
“Yes, exactly.  That one.  You have met my mother, right?  She’s started to call you her other son.  She's not gonna care what the government, or really anyone else, has to say.  I mean, if you start running now, I think you might be able to get out of it, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to start dropping hints any day now.”  
  
“Your mother drops hints like a B-29 drops a payload.”  
  
“Yeah, be prepared to be invited to your own wedding.”  
  
Andrzej sighed and pulled Benek down on top of him, running his fingers through his messy, dark hair and idly massaging his neck and shoulders.  “As long as I won’t be expected to plan anything.”  
  
“You like planning things.”  
  
“Things that are not parties.”  
  
They laid like that, in the sun, for a few minutes.  Until Ben got too heavy and Andrzej pushed him off and they both got up to wander back over to the route they had been working on earlier.  
  
Andrzej was chalking up his hands and contemplating his next attempt when Benek broke into his thoughts.  "You don't have to though, if you don't want to."  
  
"What?  Climb this thing?  Yeah I do."  He gave Ben a puzzled look.  
  
"No, the other thing.  The, you know, the wedding thing."  
  
"Ben," Andrzej sighed, exasperated, "I'm going to love you forever and if your mom wants me to say that in some kind of ceremony, I'll say it in some kind of ceremony, but it's not gonna change anything either way.  So just, tell me what you want and we'll do it."  
  
He looked at Ben.  Ben was smiled like he had just seen the first sunrise in winter.  
  
Andrzej raised an eyebrow.  "You good?"  
  
Benek just kept smiling.  "Yeah, I'm good."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Two Who Stole the Moon_ (1928) was a story written by Kornel Makuszyński about two cruel and lazy twin boys who decide to steal the moon, which is made of gold. They succeed but many hijinks ensue and, when they eventually return home, they promise to help their parents with the work on the farm and are like, generally better people because of their adventures. It was made into a film in 1962. The film became popular again in the 2000s because the twins starring in it went on to become the President and Prime Minister of Poland, respectively.
> 
> I've never made ravioli. All you good cooks out there: -_- be kind.
> 
> Huascarán Norte is the highest peak in Peru and its Northwest face (‘Polish-Czech’ variant) was first climbed on 14 July 1985 by B. Danihelkova, Z. Hoffmanova, A. Kaploniak, E. Parnejko, and E. Szezesniak. I'm pretending this hadn't happened yet so Ben and Andrzej could go do it.
> 
> Wanda Rutkiewicz (Rey) died in 1992 while climbing Kangchenjunga. It would have been her ninth eight-thousander. The fic ends in 1991 but I'm just adding this note as an FYI: Rey doesn't die. I don't want her to die so... she doesn't.
> 
> Andrzej's hair is based on [a painting by jeusus](https://78.media.tumblr.com/ad3e5915d311c8ca586d1a4baffe0ddc/tumblr_or3vhtJR4K1qdu1txo1_540.jpg) it is absolutely gorgeous, check it out right now!! (@jeusus on Tumblr)


	7. Random Extra Post-Post Script

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Epilogue Post Script: because I can't help myself.
> 
> Feel free to not read this >_> It could very easily be another 50k of fanfic, but I will never write it so here you go, if anyone is interested.

  
  
Andrzej graduates with a mechanical engineering degree and gets a job at some foreign-owned company in Katowice.  He and Ben move out of Leia's apartment, but still live nearby and visit often.  Han is also in their lives and he and Leia seem to have worked out some kind of arrangement that makes them both happy and Ben doesn't really want to know anymore details than that.  
  
The mine where Ben works closes down and Ben is out of a job for a while.  While in university, Andrzej had played around with some designs for an improved ice screw (that thing you stick in the ice and attach you rope to, to protect from a fall while climbing).  He doesn't really want Ben to get another labor job, so he and Ben form a tinny climbing equipment company based on those designs (Han helps them establish their business so that their patents will be protected by international copyright law).  Andrzej tinkers around a bit more with the general ideas he had been developing, but Ben is the one who spends long hours fabricating, testing and refining the design.  
  
Benek is invited to be a presenter at the ice climbing world cup (probably because of that Olympic medal he received back in the 80s).  He thinks the organizers must have really hit the bottom of the barrel before asking him, but he and Andrzej go anyway because it sounds like fun and they climb while they're there because, why not?  Their equipment designs, which had not been getting a lot of attention before, get noticed by some of the climbers and before either of them really understand what's going on, Black Diamond (a huge climbing equipment company) wants to buy the design and offers Andrzej a job on their engineering team.  Andrzej negotiates being able to work remotely most of the time, so he and Benek don't have to move away from Poland.  
  
They use the money they made selling their patent to open a rock climbing gym with Phasma and Dopheld.  Andrzej is more of a silent owner, he has no interest in being involved in the day-to-day running of things, other than doing some route-setting when he feels like it (he knows that if he gets involved, he will get way too OCD about every tiny inefficiency and it will drive him and everyone else nuts).  Phasma and Dopheld handle most of the administrative stuff and Ben runs a lot of clinics and classes and things like that.  Most of the time the gym barely breaks even, but they don't have a lavish lifestyle Andrzej makes enough money at Black Diamond that they can afford to not make money on the climbing gym.  
  
Leia does insist on them getting married and it's supposed to be a very small, private ceremony, but it turns out Andrzej has more friends who support him than he had anticipated, so there end up being closer to a hundred people there.  It's all really sweet and heart-felt and Andrzej cries again but Ben makes sure no one else sees because he knows Andrzej would hate that.  
  
Rey and her husband, Finn, don't come to the wedding.  Instead, they send Andrzej and Benek two tickets to come visit them in Canada to go climbing in the Northern Cascades.  Ben is prepared to basically ignore Rey and Finn the whole time, but this proves impossible because, even though Andrzej and Finn can barely understand each other, they bond over a mutual love of terrible 80s bubblegum pop.  Rey and Ben have no choice but to bond over how they both married the most ridiculous human beings on the planet Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr [harlanhardway](https://harlanhardway.tumblr.com/). Check out the "Climbing the Curved Earth" tag for sketches and... other random shit!
> 
> There is a [Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.de/harlanhardway/climbing-the-curved-earth/) too! :D
> 
> There is a lovely drawing of Andrzej by [Katie's Ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatiesGhost/pseuds/KatiesGhost). You can find it [here](http://katiesghosts.tumblr.com/post/171871851934/the-loveliest-mountain-climber-of-them-all).
> 
> If you want to know what Andrzej and Benek's rock climbing styles look like, check out Adam Ondra and Chris Sharma [climbing La Dura Dura](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=stQhEZn4RE0). Andrzej and Benek would never have been this good buuuuut, whatever, it's fan fiction and Sharma and Ondra are AMAZING.
> 
> If you want to see what a campus board work out would look like, check out [Efficient Campus Board Training | Adam Ondra's Training Series Ep.3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AXcQM4TuE8). Adam Ondra is just AMAZING and bonus: he's from the Czech Republic, so he probably learned to climb in the same mountain range as where this fic takes place!! :)))
> 
> Also, for an idea of what mountaineering looked like in the 80s and 90s, check out _Touching the Void_ it's a documentary/mountaineering survival story that I would 100% recommend to anyone even if you have zero interest in mountaineering. I think you can find it on Youtube and it is SO GOOD.


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